THE WORKERS’ COMPENSATION BOARD DID NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO MAKE ITS OWN DETERMINATION TO APPORTION SOME OF CLAIMANT’S DISABILITY TO A 1976 INJURY (THIRD DEPT).

The Third Department, reversing the Worker’s Compensation Board, determined the Board did not have sufficient evidence to determine the extent to which a 1976 injury accounted for some of claimant’s disability:

We recognize that the Board’s medical guidelines “provide ‘useful criteria’ and the Board makes the ultimate determination of a claimant’s degree of disability, but that determination must be supported by substantial evidence” … . Moreover, “although the Board may reject medical evidence as incredible or insufficient, it may not fashion its own medical opinion” … . Here, there are no operative or pathological reports from any surgeries related to the 1976 injury in the record. Nor is there any medical evidence regarding the degree of disability, if any, that had resulted from the 1976 injury and/or surgery and the record reflects that claimant was fully employed with no restrictions at the time of the 2016 injury. Further, even assuming, without deciding, that an evaluation of the 1976 injury under the 1996 guidelines is appropriate for the purposes of determining whether that injury would have resulted in an SLU [schedule loss of use] award, there is no medical opinion that the 1976 injury would have resulted in an SLU award at the time of the injury or under the subsequently published 1996 guidelines. Matter of Hughes v Mid Hudson Psychiatric Ctr., 2021 NY Slip Op 04939, Third Dep 9-2-21