In this quarter the Board did not designate any of its decisions as published.
The 7th Circuit, in Jeffboat, Inc. v. Director, OWCP, affirmed an ALJ’s award of compensation. In so doing the Court noted the claimant had no obligation to identify a specific work-related condition. The act requires claimant to show disability resulting from an injury. An an injury under the LHWCA is any physical harm, regardless of the label.
In Passalaqua v. Bath Iron Works Corporation, the Board held a medical expert who said he could not attribute claimant’s lung condition to a work exposure because he had not seen pulmonary function studies, x-rays, CT scans, MRI’s, serial pulmonary function tests, or detailed documentation of exposures, did not rebut the §20(a) presumption because he did not opine claimant’s pulmonary condition was not caused by employment or opine claimant’s cardiac condition was the sole cause of respiratory symptoms.
In Trajkovski v. Fluor ConOps, Ltd., claimant and employer settled a claim for psychological conditions, but the settlement agreement also said settlement included physical symptoms arising from the psychological conditions, including any pulmonary or hearing loss claims, and a footnote said $500 was allocated to any pulmonary injury, be it direct injury or sequela of the psychological injury. Within a year of this settlement claimant filed a new claim for his pulmonary condition. The ALJ granted summary decision to employer, concluding the new claim was precluded by the prior agreement. The Board remanded. An agreement to settle a claim is limited to the rights of parties and claims then in existence. Because the agreement was not clear if it covered any work-related pulmonary injury or only pulmonary symptoms arising out of claimant’s psychological injury claim, it was inappropriate to grant a summary decision.
