Transcript:
00:00:00
When instead of an occupational disease, this person's condition developed over a relatively short period of time doing physical work, in this case, um, construction in a tunnel. And he developed back pain. Now, this was a little bit confusing to a judge because it neither was a specific accident date that could be pinpointed uh at a specific time or a condition that developed over the course of years through doing physical construction, things of that nature. So, the judge couldn't pinpoint when it happened,
00:00:30
couldn't and couldn't really wrap their head around whether or not this was a compensable claim. So, the judge initially disallowed the claim, meaning that it was denied at the judge level. And we had to file an appeal. Usually appeals don't go particularly well for claimants' attorneys. It can be difficult to win a an appeal, especially because a judge is making a determination uh and basically evaluating the evidence, determining who's credible, who's not credible. So,
00:00:56
it can be difficult to win when a judge initially states that the claim is denied and disallowed and would not be established. Now, the one thing that was helpful is this judge wasn't particularly consistent in the logic that was used because she did say it seemed like he would have injured his back over the course of doing this work, which I think was something that we could focus on in order to kind of make it seem like the judge's decision didn't make a whole lot of sense. Based on
00:01:22
that, we filed an appeal and we won and the judge uh sorry, the board panel, which overturned the judge, noted that this was a condition that developed over time and was kind of a slow developing accident, which is something that's different from a traditional accident, which is in a specific duration uh in a specific point in time versus an occupational disease, which is something that develops over a longer period of time. Um, and then established the claim, uh got the claim of benefits for
00:01:50
a substantial period of time, eventually resulted in settlement, which I thought was even more interesting than normal, although not that this is particularly interesting, but what was partic- what was a little bit unique in this was that the board panel basically said even though they had no idea the date that the accident happened, it would still be established as an accident date. So, um we were happy to help our client in that uh case, and we were uh happy to get someone benefits in a situation that was a little bit unique
00:02:16
and a little bit different in that it was difficult to pinpoint when it actually happened.
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