Opinion ID: 880380
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: limitation of benefits to april 8, 1987:

Text: It is not clear from the court's findings why it placed this cutoff date on benefits payable to Mrs. Hilbig. In its Order Denying Defendant's Motion to Clarify the Domiciliary Care Issue, the court stated: On April 8, 1984, [1987] State Fund claims examiner, Larry Thomas, informed the claimant's counsel, R.V. Bottomly, that the State Fund is authorizing domiciliary care for a period of six months, at eight hours per day, at $7.50 per hour. At the end of that time period, consideration would be given to future needs of the claimant. The record shows that the Workers' Compensation Court limited domiciliary care to benefits due prior to April 14, 1987, the date of the State Fund offer of 8 hours per day of such care at $7.50 per hour. The court assumed that benefits after that date would be decided at some later date following a six-month observation period during which claimant's needs would be monitored and evaluated. We note that more than one year had expired from the April 14, 1987 offer to the June 20, 1988 court order. The six-month period had long expired. In addition, we note that the pretrial order of January 9, 1987 provided that the issue was whether the State Fund had paid all medical expenses under § 39-71-704, MCA, which included the domiciliary care issue. We affirm the Workers' Compensation Court award of domiciliary care of $7.50 per hour, 24 hours a day, from December 6, 1986, to April 8, 1987. We remand this cause to the Workers' Compensation Court for such additional proceedings as it shall determine to be necessary in order that the court may determine the extent of the domiciliary care to which claimant is entitled from and after April 8, 1987. TURNAGE, C.J., and HARRISON, SHEEHY and HUNT, JJ., concur.