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Excerpts
Claimant was born and raised in Puerto Rico and claims to speak and understand very little English. He is highly educated, having earned a master’s degree, taught Spanish, and preached religion for 16 years in Puerto Rico. On August 31, 2010, while working as an electrician with Employer, Claimant testified he was pulling heavy wires when he felt pain in his low stomach below his navel as well as his low back. After the pain did not subside with rest, Claimant went to the yard clinic where, upon examination, he was determined to have a protruding hernia and sent to Ochsner Hospital and seen by Dr. Townsend.
Employer points to several inconsistencies in Claimant’s testimony and complaints to rebut the Section 20(a) presumption with regard to Claimant’s alleged back injury. Claimant did not complain of back pain to Dr. Townsend until December 28, 2011, over a year after he had first treated Claimant in the fall of 2010. Dr. Townsend testified that he does not recall telling Claimant that he would treat his back pain after the hernias were treated, as Claimant had testified. Dr. Townsend also stated that he would have referred Claimant to another physician if he had complained of back pain since that treatment is outside of his expertise. He opined that the low back pain was not related to the hernia repair he had performed in 2010. He found Claimant’s complaints and behavior inconsistent and “blown out of proportion”.
Conclusion
Judge Avery found the evidence as a whole weighs in favor of Claimant. Three of the four doctors who examined Claimant testified that the workplace injury could have caused Claimant’s low back pains. While all of the medical opinions given in this case are credible, the opinions of Drs. Brantmeier and Sudderth are given greater weight as they had the opportunity to observe Claimant on several occasions over a longer period of time than Drs. Townsend and Katz. They found Claimant consistent in his complaints and found objective signs of Claimant’s pain such as stiffness and tenderness in his back. While Dr. Sudderth characterized Claimant as “dramatic”, this could likely be attributable to the depression Claimant has been diagnosed with by the psychiatrists of record. Despite this, Dr. Sudderth stated that he believed Claimant really was suffering from a low back injury due to the workplace accident on August 31, 2010. No doctor found that Claimant was malingering. I find his sometimes overly emotional behavior does not take away from the credibility of his testimony, as Employer suggests. Therefore, I find Claimant has established that the low back condition is a compensable injury.
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