Workers’ Compensation Case

Workers' Compensation

The Claimant was injured on the job but failed to file a written accident report in accordance with his employer’s policy. The employer respondents argued that his actions led inexorably to the conclusion that the trier should have authorized neither his treatment nor the period of total disability that, according to the doctor, immediately followed his injury. The doctor consulted was not a member physician in the employer’s medical care plan. The respondents maintained that the Claimant was required to accept responsibility for seeking treatment outside the plan. Kocian Law Group lawyers countered that the respondents’ internal injury-reporting protocol cannot be absolute given the employer’s statutory obligation to provide competent medical care as soon as it has knowledge of an injury. This significant workers’ compensation decision created important legal precedent that an employer cannot insist that a Claimant seek treatment only from doctors within its own medical care plan in the event the case is later determined to be compensable.