![]() ![]() In ruling for MassCOP, the arbitrator rejected the Town’s argument that Officer Woodworth had to present evidence of a new injury following his full recovery and return to full duty in 2010. In Ipswich, the arbitrator found that it was “clear from the evidence” (which included the treating doctor’s medical records and the officer’s direct testimony) that the grievant was disabled in 2014 because of his 2009 on-the-job injury for which surgery was required in 2014. Rather, it is necessary to define the relationship between the first compensable injury and the second injury for which the officer seeks benefits. Neither speculation, surmise, conjecture nor coincidence will establish causation. 249, 258 (1978).Īs in any injury leave dispute, medical documentation and testimony of the injured officer are critical to winning a recurrence case. “From a sheer policy perspective, the statutory benefits should extend to service-related incapacities which appear subsequent to the date of the original injury, even where, as here, the officer returns to duty thinking that he is fully recovered.” In a Section 111F case involving a recurring injury for a police officer, the Supreme Judicial Court put it this way: Lastly, there is no definitive cutoff for when an injury will no longer be viewed as a recurrence, and a return to work will not negatively impact an employee’s claim. Under basic torts law principles, something is a recurrence if the earlier condition continues to be the natural and proximate cause of the industrial injury. The subsequent injury is compensable as long as the non-work activity was normal, reasonable and not performed negligently. Moreover, a recurrence will be covered by workers’ compensation even if an aggravation that causes the recurrence is not work-related. The law is well established that the deleterious effects of work subsequent to an industrial injury do not amount to a new industrial injury where the incapacity suffered is “simply the natural physiological progression of a condition following the initial incident.” The state Department of Industrial Accidents has stated the recurrence principle as follows: As one arbitrator has stated, the term recurrence, “implies that an officer had recovered and then suffered another occurrence of the problem.” In such cases, the employer or insurer cannot obtain immunity from injury leave by characterizing as a “new injury” what is essentially a manifestation or consequence of an earlier compensable injury. where the most recent disability is a direct result of the previous injury and there have been no intervening factors that would have created the second injury. Both the Supreme Judicial Court and the Appeals Court have used analogous workers’ compensation cases to decide matters under Section 111F.Ī recurrence is when an employee is injured, hurt, in pain, etc. Because these two statutes fulfill the same legislative objective of protecting injured workers, the standard for whether a police officer receives injury leave is the same as the standard for other injured employees under workers’ compensation. c.41, §111F fills a gap in the workers’ compensation system by providing benefits to injured or disabled police officers and firefighters who have been excluded from coverage under the workers’ compensation act, M.G.L. ![]() In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, almost all employees except police officers and firefighters are covered by the state workers’ compensation law. It is this last category of “recurrence” disability that Officer Woodworth found himself when the Town of Ipswich denied him injury leave coverage under M.G.L. Many injuries, including those which result in full recovery, will create a weakness in the officer’s body that will cause problems down the road. Some injuries will be so significant that the officer will eventually have to retire on an accidental disability pension. In most cases, recovery from that injury will be full and the officer will return to duty without any apparent difficulty. Inevitably, at some point in a Massachusetts police officer’s career, the officer will suffer an injury on the job. MassCOP’s case was presented and argued by Sandulli Grace Attorney Ken Grace. The arbitrator granted Ipswich Police Officer Aaron Woodworth injury leave for a three month period in 2014 when Officer Woodworth was out of work recovering from ankle surgery which was a recurrence of his original injury in 2009 (Read the full decision of Arbitrator Boulanger HERE). On January 14, 2015, arbitrator Richard Boulanger issued an important injury leave award in favor of the Massachusetts Coalition of Police and its affiliate, the Ipswich Police Association, Local 310. ![]()
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