Opinion ID: 1508622
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: cmp's appeal

Text: [¶ 5] CMP contends that its payment of benefits for the 1994 injury bars a petition for award for the 1981 injury even though that payment for the 1994 injury was without prejudice. We disagree. Title 39-A M.R.S.A. § 305 (Supp.1998) provides, in pertinent part, that [i]n the event of a controversy as to the responsibility of an employer for the payment of compensation, any party in interest may file in the office of the board a petition for award of compensation . . . . (emphasis added). In Libby v. Boise Cascade Corp., 1998 ME 89, ¶ 4-8, 709 A.2d 737, 738-39, we held that an employer's payment of full benefits without prejudice does not preclude a petition for protection of the Act to establish causation. Id. As we recognized in Libby, section 305 permits the filing of petitions for award in cases involving controversies over the responsibility of employers to pay compensation, and not merely controversies concerning the amount of benefits paid to the employee. Id. Just as the employee in Libby was entitled to bring a petition for award to establish causation when the employer had paid benefits without prejudice on a single injury, CMP's payments without prejudice for a subsequent injury do not preclude Goff from litigating and establishing causation with resect to his 1981 injury. [¶ 6] CMP next contends that, even if Goff is not precluded from filing a petition for award for the 1981 injury, pursuant to our decision in Ray v. Carland Constr., Inc., 1997 ME 206, ¶ 6, 703 A.2d 648, 650-51, Goff's entitlement to benefits after 1994 must be governed exclusively by the law and the average weekly wage in effect at the time of his 1994 injury. In Ray, we held that, when an employee's incapacity results from the combination of a pre-1993 work-injury and a second work-injury after 1993, the entire resulting incapacity is governed by the law in effect at the time of the subsequent work-related injury. Id. [1] [¶ 7] Ray, however, and the statutory change enacted in response to Ray, address the issue of the applicable law in cases when the employee suffers more than one compensable injury, the latter of which occurs after the effective date of title 39-A. Until the employer accepts the compensability of the 1994 injury with prejudice, or there is a Board decision establishing the compensability of that injury, however, Goff has not suffered two work-related injuries for purposes of the Act, and the 1994 injury must be treated as a subsequent nonwork-injury for purposes of determining the applicable law. [2] See e.g., Lamonica v. Ladd Holmes, 1998 ME 190, ¶ 5-9, 718 A.2d 182 (employer not entitled to apportionment for subsequent noncompensable work-injury); Harding v. Sheridan D. Smith, Inc., 647 A.2d 1193, 1194 (Me.1994) (same). By electing to pay the employee without prejudice, CMP has preserved its right to contest the compensability of the 1994 injury. We find nothing in the statutory language or our decisions to permit an employer to deny that a compensable work-injury occurred, as CMP has done in this case, and then to treat that injury as work-related for the purpose of deciding what law applies to determine benefits.