Opinion ID: 2622773
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the certiorari arguments

Text: ¶ 5 Employer argues that COCA's elevation of the IME-report assessments (to a higher level of probative value than that accorded other medical opinions) is an impermissible expansion of the statute-ascribed role for court-appointed physicians, which goes far beyond the dimensions contemplated (or intended) by the legislative text. By prescribing a different weight to be given IME opinions, COCA distorts, if not indeed discards, the long-established any-competent-evidence standard for review of the panel's factual resolutions [5] and invests the court-appointed doctor with judicial authority for making findings of fact. Employer asserts that COCA's reliance on Massachusetts and Louisiana law is misplaced. In those states the legislature has explicitly given prima facie effect to an IME-report assessment. Louisiana's workers' compensation system is managed by an administrative agency whose hearing officerswhen confronted with disputed medical factsare statutorily mandated to cede all fact-finding authority to a doctor. Employer claims the Massachusetts IME system is also distinguishable in several respects from that in Oklahoma. According to the employer, even if we assumed COCA was correct concerning the weight to be given an IME opinion, it nonetheless committed fatal error by failing to determine if there is any competent evidence to support the panel's findings. Employer urges the panel's denial of the claimant-sought relief is supported by competent evidence. ¶ 6 Claimant, on the other hand, argues the Legislature must have intended for IME opinions to serve as a tie-breaker between dueling party-sponsored physicians. She urges us to give legitimacy to the legislative scheme by crafting either (a) a presumption in favor of unanimous IME opinions or (b) a prima facie standard for unanimous IME opinions. According to claimant, a contrary construction will rob core meaning from intended IME utilization. She claims the medical opinion upon which the trial tribunal based its decision lacks probative value when considered in light of all the medical proof as a whole which bears on the medical causation issue. In other words, claimant urges us to review the enactment authorizing the use of IME reports as a legislative call for replacement of the any-competent-evidence standard by the clear-weight-of-the-evidence gauge.