CHARLESTON — The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed a decision by the Workers' Compensation Board of Review regarding an Arch Coal employee's lower back injury claim following a previous order that rejected the claim.
Jimmie Lemon's workers' compensation claim has been the subject of several decisions and rulings since it was filed in May 2016.
According to the May 30 opinion, Lemon suffered a lower back injury that was held as a compensable injury by the board. However, the Supreme Court said in a ruling last year that it believed Lemon's injury was not work-related. The 2017 opinion reversed the board's decision.
Justice Menis Ketchum
| West Virginia Judiciary
The Supreme Court subsequently agreed to rehear the case and changed its previous ruling, stating that it now believes Lemon's injury was work-related. As a result, the court withdrew the December 2017 memorandum decision.
Justice Menis Ketchum authored the opinion upholding the board's determination.
According to the opinion, Lemon worked for Arch Coal as a general laborer and was injured in 2009 when he was diagnosed with a mild bulging disc.
Lemon was driving a shuttle car in April 2016 on a rough road when he hit a pothole and seriously injured his lower back. Lemon's chiropractor ordered an MRI, which showed that he had suffered a herniated disc. However, the court said a claims administrator later denied that claim, and a physician compared MRIs from 2009 and 2016 and determined the injury resulted from the progression of the bulging disc.
The administrator's decision was reversed in August 2016 by an administrative law judge, and, in January 2017, the Worker's Compensation Board of Review affirmed the decision.
Arch Coal appealed to the Supreme Court, resulting in the Dec. 19, 2017 memorandum decision that said the injury was not work-related.
"As the administrative law judge determined, the preponderance of the evidence shows that Lemon left his shift early on April 6, 2016 upon sustaining a compensable, discrete new injury, i.e. a herniated disc at L4-5," Ketchum wrote in the May 30 opinion.