NWCDN Members regularly post articles and summary judgements in workers’ compensations law in your state.
Select a state from the dropdown menu below to scroll through the state specific archives for updates and opinions on various workers’ compensation laws in your state.
Contact information for NWCDN members is also located on the state specific links in the event you have additional questions or your company is seeking a workers’ compensation lawyer in your state.
An Arkansas Court of Appeals recently made an important distinction between the causation evidence required to establish a natural consequence of a compensable injury/illness as opposed to the evidence required to establish that a claimant’s primary compensable illness/injury was the major cause of the permanent impairment resulting from the compensable consequence. Booneville Hum. Dev. Ctr. v. Foster v. Foster, 2024 Ark. App. 618.
In Booneville v. Foster, the Court found substantial evidence supported the Full Commission’s determination that the claimant’s atrial fibrillation was a natural consequence of his compensable COVID-19 illness based on Foster’s testimony that he had not been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation before contracting COVID-19 along with a medical report from Foster’s family physician which stated he had a complicated course of COVID-19 that resulted in a deterioration of his health including diastolic heart failure, respiratory failure and atrial fibrillation among other complications. However, the Court did not find substantial evidence supporting the Commission’s finding that Foster was entitled to a 10% impairment rating for his atrial fibrillation because no additional evidence was proffered to establish that Foster’s COVID-19 illness was the major cause of his atrial fibrillation as opposed to other potential causes such as his preexisting history of hypertension and obesity. Therefore, the Court reversed the Commission’s 10% permanent impairment award and held that “evidence of a causal connection between Foster's COVID-19 illness and his atrial fibrillation [did] not automatically resolve the issue of Foster's entitlement to permanent benefits for atrial fibrillation.” Id. at 10.