Attorneys Ellen Shanahan Becker and Thomas Videon of our office worked together on this matter to obtain disallowance of a claim of consequential shoulder injury in this dog attack case. The claimant was attacked by a dog in the course of his employment. He was bitten in the bicep, and soon after complained of right shoulder pain, alleging that the dog attack had also caused an injury there.
Ellen and Thomas were able to develop the record to show that this claimant had a pre-existing condition in the right shoulder. Their persistence in obtaining records of treatment prior to the date of injury enabled them to effectively cross-examine the doctors on the issue of a shoulder injury.
After the Law Judge disallowed the shoulder claim, the claimant appealed, and the Board Panel agreed with the Law Judge and our firm’s argument. The Board Panel noted that one treating doctor admitted during testimony that he did not have enough information to state that the trauma from the dog bite exacerbated or aggravated a pre-existing condition in the claimant’s shoulder. Another doctor was not even aware that the claimant had previously been treated for a right shoulder injury and did not review any of the claimant’s prior treatment records. He was not aware of the claimant’s prior injury–a fall in a garage on his right arm–so he could not form an opinion on a causal relationship.
Our client’s consultant noted that the claimant had pre-existing chronic right shoulder rotator cuff arthropathy. He indicated that it would be expected the claimant had restrictions of range of motion prior to his work accident. He found the claimant’s shoulder condition to be unrelated to his work accident, and both the Law Judge and the Board Panel credited this opinion, twice disallowing the right shoulder claim.
Ellen and Thomas proved that by hounding providers for prior treatment records and then approaching cross-examination of the doctors with dogged determination, they can achieve an excellent result for our clients.
