So let me get this straight… applicant-nurse is “attacked” by a teen-aged patient and sustains a scratch and a bruise.  She shrugs it off and goes about her day.  Six days later she has a stroke (arguably caused by her pre-existing, non-industrial hypertension) and then dies more than a year later.  The panel Qualified Medical Evaluator finds her stroke and death to be non-industrial… and somehow the workers’ compensation Judge still comes down on the side of the applicant?

In the case of Amelia Mendoza (Dec’d) v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, applicant nurse was evaluated for her scratch and bruise while she was suffering from non-industrial hypertension and high blood pressure.

The workers’ compensation Judge went so far as to say that the panel QME was a doctor “hired by defendant” and disregarded his opinions as influenced by a “bias in favor of a hospital where he may wish to practice and a defendant who he may wish to do QME work for.”  Still no word on whether chiropractor QMEs can be disqualified for “bias” because they may want to later serve as treating physicians for the applicants they evaluate.

After the trial, the WCJ awarded death benefits when no claim for death benefits had been made and the only issues at trial were Arising out of Employment/in the Course of Employment (AOE/COE) and applicant’s attorney’s fees.

So what did the WCJ base his conclusion on, if not the opinions of the “hired” and “biased” panel QME?  The treating physician – the one who:

(1) relied on the widower-husband’s accounts of the “attacks” who was not present during the time of the attacks;

(2) relied on a report of a head injury (which were not mentioned in any contemporaneous medical reports); and

(3) somehow found a causal link between applicant’s high blood pressure and the scratches she sustained during the “attack” simply because both were observed at the same time.

The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, in granting defendant’s petition for reconsideration, held that the WCJ appeared to imply that “when an employee with pre-existing nonindusrial hypertension seeks treatment for a minor industrial abrasion and exhibits concurrent elevated blood pressure, the employer thereafter becomes liable for all treatment and consequences of the employee’s elevated blood pressure.  That is not an accurate interpretation of workers’ compensation law.”

Not easily discouraged, applicant filed a petition for writ of review … which the Court of Appeal denied.

Appeals are expensive and time-consuming, but they are often worth it, especially in cases like these.  The defense stuck to its proverbial guns and didn’t allow its case to get steamrolled.  WCDefenseCA sends its salute to the Huntington Hospital.