Hutchison v. Industrial Claim Appeals Office

Citations

• 2017 COA 79
• 405 P.3d 458
• 2017 WL 2380536
• 2017 Colo. App. LEXIS 696

Syllabus

Workers' Compensation—Occupational Disease—Apportionment—Previous Injury. Claimant Hutchison has worked as a trailer mechanic for Pine Country, Inc. (employer) since 1990. Claimant began experiencing knee pain in 2012. In October 2014, when his symptoms worsened, claimant reported his knee pain to his employer as a work-related occupational disease. The employer contested the claim on relatedness grounds, and supported its position with an independent medical examination, which concluded that claimant had osteoarthritis and was overweight and suggested that claimant's employment was not the cause of the arthritis. An administrative law judge (ALJ) determined that one-third of claimant's injury was work-related. The Industrial Claim Appeals Office (Panel) affirmed the ALJ's decision.On appeal, claimant challenged the apportionment of his benefits award. Claimant contended that his knee condition arose from repetitive kneeling and crawling necessitated by his work as a trailer mechanic, rather than from a specific incident, and therefore, it should be covered as an occupational disease. Here, because claimant's knee condition was one ongoing disease with both work- and non-work- related causes, there was no separate \previous injury\ as anticipated by CRS § 8-42-104(3) it was instead one injury with multiple causes. The Panel therefore properly concluded that the CRS § 8-42-104(3) prohibition against apportionment for a previous injury did not apply. Further, the order is consistent with case law. Claimant also contended that substantial evidence does not support the ALJ's apportionment. The Court of Appeals concluded that substantial evidence supports the ALJ's apportionment findings and held that the Panel did not err when it declined to set aside the ALJ's order on that basis. The order was affirmed.