Canadian Safety Reporter

5 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2017 News | September 2017 | CSR No worker's compensation for return of worker's old injury Worker's description of accident didn't fit with his type of knee injury, but MRI showed consistency with previous injury BY JEFFREY R. SMITH AN ONTARIO worker has lost an appeal for workers' compensa- tion benefits based on a work- place incident that didn't fit his injury – an injury with symp- toms consistent with an injury suffered years earlier. The 31-year-old worker was hired as a truck driver on a tem- porary, short-term contract by a large produce farming operation in Ontario. As a condition of employment, the worker under- went a pre-employment medical exam in which the worker dis- closed he had had surgery on his left knee about five years earlier. The injury was caused by catch- ing his left foot in a rut while playing softball and twisting his left knee. After spending one- and-one-half years on crutches, the worker reported having no problems with his knee unless he engaged in "extreme" activities. The examiner recommended limitations on squatting for the worker, but the farm operation hired him. He started his em- ployment on July 17, 2012, and worked four more days over the next week. On July 24 – the worker's fifth shift on the farm – he injured his left knee. He reported for his shift the next day and worked 13 and one-half hours, but his knee swelled up and was pain- ful, causing him to limp and work more slowly. One of his co- workers asked him how he was and he replied that he had knee pain, but didn't mention the ac- cident or say anything to man- agement. The knee seemed to improve slightly over the course of the day, but it swelled up again when he went home. The worker visited his family physician on July 26 and told him about the accident at work, but according to the worker the phy- sician refused to fill out an injury report. He went to a hospital emergency room on Aug. 2 and also checked in with the employ- er's physician, who diagnosed a left knee strain. The physician recommended physiotherapy and the use of a knee brace, clearing the worker for modified duties with restrictions on bend- ing and twisting of the left knee, climbing, kneeling, pushing or pulling weights greater than 30 pounds, and left knee flexion greater than twenty degrees. The worker filed an injury re- port dated Aug. 3 that described the injury: "I was emptying the loaded skids from the cooler with a hand jack when I 'grabbed' one skid which weighed over 1,500 lbs, I walk(ed) over the scale in order to get to the cooler. I controlled it going downhill to the loading dock and turned it around to be loaded. I began pushing with all my might and halfway into the truck my knee popped, burned, and buckled." Worker tried to explain delay in reporting The worker said he didn't report the injury on the day it hap- pened nearly two weeks earlier because the knee didn't swell up initially and he didn't think the injury was serious. He also said he was afraid he would be fired if he reported the injury so early into his employment at the farm. He eventually explained what happened and the farm opera- tion offered him one of two jobs in which he could sit on a stool: packaging mushrooms on the production line or slicing mush- rooms off the line. He didn't think he could do either job as he had been told to keep his knee elevated. The farm operation submit- ted a report of injury to the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) the same day as the worker's report, recommending that the worker shouldn't be entitled to workers' compensation benefits because he delayed in reporting the in- jury and he had a pre-existing impairment in the knee. The worker visited a physio- therapist for assessment on Aug. 8. The physiotherapist reported that the worker had occasional locking of his left knee, could only stand for five minutes at a time, and lacked a good range of motion in his knee. Noting the previous injury, the physio- therapist recommended a return to modified duties with similar restrictions to that indicated by the farm operation's physician as well as limits on standing and walking. An MRI in September confirmed no meniscal tear or injuries to the ligaments or joints and couldn't identify the cause of the swelling and locking, but found the injured area was the same area that had been injured five years earlier – the cartilage covering the end of a bone in a joint was torn. Credit: Shutterstock/TuiPhotoEngineer Worker waited > pg. 8 e worker finished his shift the day of the injury and worked a long shift the next day

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