Our partner Susan Parzymieso recently obtained disallowance of two claims for the same hand asserted by the same claimant. The injured worker had an established claim for right carpal tunnel syndrome in 2021. In 2024, he brought a new claim for left carpal tunnel syndrome. With no supporting medical evidence, the claimant then requested that the right carpal tunnel claim be amended to include a consequential left carpal tunnel.

Susan discovered that the claimant had made statements to his employer and an investigator in 2021 that he was aware that he had carpal tunnel syndrome on both sides as a result of the repetitive nature of his work. He also told an independent medical examiner in 2022 that his complaints were bilateral due to his employment and that they had been ongoing for the past 5 to 6 years.

The treating doctor believed that the claimant’s left carpal tunnel syndrome was both consequential following right carpal tunnel release surgery and causally related to his employment. Upon deposing this doctor, however, Susan obtained testimony that he had no history of prior left carpal tunnel complaints prior to 2024. The treating doctor, when confronted with newly developed facts, changed his opinion, stating that the claimant’s condition was more likely to be causally related to his employment and not consequential to the prior claim.

Meanwhile, the claimant told an independent medical examiner in 2024 only that the complaints began after the right carpal tunnel release surgery. Based on this, the examiner found a consequential condition.

It was clear after further proceedings that there was no basis to find the claimant’s left carpal tunnel syndrome consequential to the right hand surgery. Rather, symptoms on the left clearly dated back to the original onset of the right carpal tunnel syndrome. Using new Board Panel precedent, Susan argued that the consequential claim was time-barred where, although the left carpal tunnel syndrome was mentioned in the records within two years of the date of accident, there was no diagnosis nor any opinion on causal relationship within the two-year statute of limitations. Thus, the carrier could not reasonably infer that a timely claim for left carpal tunnel syndrome was being made. Following Susan’s summation, the Law Judge agreed with her position and denied the request to amend the right carpal tunnel syndrome claim to include consequential left carpal tunnel syndrome. The separate claim for left carpal tunnel syndrome was dismissed with prejudice essentially on the same basis.

We have to “hand” it to Susan for her careful and diligent work that now requires  the claimant to put his left carpal tunnel release surgery through private insurance, relieving our client of any obligation to pay indemnity or medical benefits for the left side.

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