Wyoming: Commission Did Not Err In Accepting Seven Medical Expert’s Opinions Instead of Claimant’s Non-Expert Theory of Causation

Where the record established that the potential causes of a worker’s syncopal episodes were numerous and complex, the Wyoming Medical Commission did not abuse its discretion by accepting the evidence from seven medical experts, including the worker’s treating physician, and discounting the worker’s contrary non-expert opinion, held the Supreme Court of Wyoming. The worker had suffered a compensable neck injury at work in 2008. He underwent surgery for that condition. Three years later, he began to experience short losses of consciousness, known as “syncope,” which he attributed to treatment for the injury. The Division paid for attempts to diagnose the cause of the worker’s black outs, and paid for treatment of injuries to his back, thumb, wrist, and ear suffered when he fell during syncope events. The worker then sought Division approval for lower back surgery to treat another injury he received from such a fall. The Division denied approval, and the Medical Commission upheld the Division’s determination that the worker had not proven that the need for lower back surgery was directly related to the 2008 neck injury. The appellate court affirmed. The worker contended that he never had syncope episodes before the initial injury and neck surgery. He concluded that the surgery or its complications must have caused his syncope. He claimed further that since his need for back surgery was linked to a fall that resulted from his syncope, it must be compensable as well as the original injury. The court noted that the medical experts in this case were a physical medicine specialist, two neurologists, a neurosurgeon, a retired orthopedist, a cardiologist, and the worker’s treating physician. None of them found a causal connection between the worker’s neck injury or neck surgery and his syncope.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See In re Claim of Hood, 2016 WY 104, 2016 Wyo. LEXIS 115 (Oct. 28, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 128.05.

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