The Freibott Law Firm was again successful in prosecuting a case on behalf of one of our clients. This particular client has been in front of the Industrial Accident Board on numerous occasions and we have won every single case. In this case, our client was seriously injured when several PVC pipes fell and struck him on the head causing him to fall onto concrete striking his head again. Our client sustained an intracranial injury; a subdural hematoma; subdural hemorrhage; a closed head injury; a concussion; and an injury leading to debilitating headaches. We were forced to file a Petition to seek Additional Compensation Due as the worker’s compensation insurance company was denying needed medical treatment and prescriptions as well as admissions to the Methodist Hospital for lidocaine infusion therapy. We presented the expert testimony of Dr. Nicole Spare, a board-certified doctor in physical medicine rehabilitation with a subspecialty board certification in headache medicine. She has been our client’s treating physician for many years. Dr. Spare testified that the various treatments and therapies that were being denied to our client were extremely important to our client and very much within the bounds of reasonableness and necessity. Dr. Spare testified that it would be inhumane to stop any of our client’s treatment as he was making good strides with his health using those treatments and therapies. The insurance company hired Dr. Nathan Schwartz who testified that our client did not need any of the therapies or any of the treatments that he had been using for the last several years. It was the opinion of Dr. Schwartz that all treatment should stop and all medication should stop so that then our client would be able to begin living better and be able to return to work. The Industrial Accident Board rejected the opinions of Dr. Schwartz. The Industrial Accident Board held that he did not present credibly. The Industrial Accident Board agreed with our expert, Dr. Spare, that it would be inhumane to follow Dr. Schwartz’s opinion to wean our client off of all his medications to establish a baseline without medications and then treat the headaches effectively. The Industrial Accident Board found that our witnesses testified credibly, and, as a result, found that all treatment rendered to date by Dr. Spare in order to treat our client’s debilitating headaches were reasonable and necessary. The Industrial Accident Board further ordered the worker’s compensation insurance carrier to pay for Dr. Spare’s expert witness fee and to pay an attorney’s fee for our successful presentation to the Industrial Accident Board. (William Sheehan v. Harvey Hanna Associates, Hearing No.: 1407592 Date of Decision: March 26, 2020.)
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