D’Onofrio v. Bank of America

The Freibott Law Firm was recently successful in prosecuting a case on behalf of one our clients wherein the Industrial Accident Board ordered the worker’s compensation insurance company to pay for a total knee replacement of her knee.  Our client had preexisting injuries to her knee.  In August of 2012, our client underwent an unrelated right knee procedure which, by September, was starting to feel “pretty good but still had some knee swelling and slight pain.”  In an October office note, our client stated she “felt good to go.”  On November 1, 2012, our client took a very bad fall at work, landing on both of her knees on a concrete floor.  She felt immediate excruciating pain in her right knee.  Despite the preexisting problems associated with her right knee, including surgery two months before her fall, the Industrial Accident Board found our client to be credible and found her treating doctor’s testimony to also be credible.  The Industrial Accident Board held, as argued by Frederick S. Freibott, Esquire, that “a preexisting disease or infirmity, whether overt or latent, does not disqualify a claim for worker’s compensation if the employment aggravated, accelerated, or in the combination with the infirmity, produced the disability.”  Moreover, the Industrial Accident Board held that compensability of a worker’s compensation injury can still be found if a claimant is actively symptomatic as long as the work accident aggravates or worsens the preexisting symptomatic condition.  The worker’s compensation insurance company argued that the Board should deny compensability for the treatment to our client’s knee, including total knee replacement, because of the preexisting, degenerative condition of the knee.  Ultimately, the Industrial Accident Board held that the November 1, 2012 work accident caused a worsening in the client’s condition and that it made the degenerative condition more symptomatic and unresponsive to conservative treatment.  It was because of this increased symptomatology that our client needed a total knee replacement surgery that was performed in October of 2013.  Simply put, but for the November 1, 2012 work accident, our client would not have needed the October 2013 knee replacement surgery at that time.  In other words, the work accident hastened the need for surgery.  The Industrial Accident Board ordered the worker’s compensation insurance company to pay for all medical treatment related to the injury to the knee, including the knee replacement surgery, and total disability for the periods that our client was out of work due to the injury.  The Industrial Accident Board also ordered the worker’s compensation insurance company to pay an attorney’s fee and to reimburse the client’s medical expert for his testimony.  (D’Onofrio v. Bank of America, Hearing No.: 1405900)