Oklahoma: Statutory Definition of “Compensable Injury” Should Not Read Too Narrowly

Oklahoma’s definition of “compensable injury” requires damage or harm to the physical structure of the body … “caused solelyas the result of either an accident, cumulative trauma or occupational disease arising out of the course and scope of employment” [Okla. Stat. tit. 85A, § 2(9)(a), emphasis added]. Notwithstanding that definition, it was error to deny an employee workers’ compensation benefits where her injury undisputedly occurred in the course of her employment, she suffered damage to her physical body, no evidence supported a finding that her injury was due to an idiopathic condition, as she had no prior knee injury, she had never sought medical treatment for her knee, and no physician found that she had the “previously unknown” condition relied on by the employer's expert.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Mullendore v. Mercy Hosp. Ardmore, 2019 OK 11, 2019 Okla. LEXIS 10 (Mar. 12, 2019)(divided decision)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 9.01.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law