CARRIER’S INABILITY TO CONDUCT AN INDEPENDENT MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF CLAIMANT WARRANTED SUSPENSION OF COMPENSATION PAYMENTS.

The Third Department determined the carrier's inability to conduct an independent medical examination (IME) of claimant, ostensibly due to claimant's medical restrictions, warranted suspending claimant's compensation payments:

… [W]e note that “refusal by the claimant to submit to [an IME] at such time or times as may reasonably be necessary in the opinion of the [B]oard, shall bar the claimant from recovering compensation for any period during which he or she has refused to submit to such examination” (Workers' Compensation Law § 13-a [4] [b]). Whether suspending compensation payments on account of a claimant's attempt to frustrate a carrier's right to engage in an IME is a question of fact for the Board to resolve … . Here, there are opposing views as to why claimant did not submit to an IME. It was within the Board's purview to credit the carrier's assertion that it has engaged in extraordinary efforts to schedule the IME … and that such efforts were thwarted by claimant's perpetual requests and demands of rescheduling and relocating the IME … . As such, we find that substantial evidence supports the Board's finding that claimant frustrated the carrier's right to engage an independent consultant by unreasonably refusing to attend an IME so as to warrant suspension of her benefits (see Workers' Compensation Law § 13-a [4] [b]…). Matter of Duncan v John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2016 NY Slip Op 01881, erd Dept 3-17-16

WORKERS' COMPENSATION LAW (CARRIER'S INABILITY TO CONDUCT AN INDEPENDENT MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF CLAIMANT WARRANTED SUSPENSION OF COMPENSATION PAYMENTS)/INDEPENDENT MEDICAL EXAMINATION (IME) (WORKERS' COMPENSATION, CARRIER'S INABILITY TO CONDUCT AN INDEPENDENT MEDICAL EXAMINATION OF CLAIMANT WARRANTED SUSPENSION OF COMPENSATION PAYMENTS)