Opinion ID: 1179569
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the employer's in-court stipulation is sufficient to dispense with proof of a changed condition

Text: While employer's counsel agreed at the hearing that the nature of the [reopening] claim is for additional medical [services], he challenged the sufficiency of the expert evidence to bring the heart transplant claim within the purview of the compensation law. [20] Stipulations made in open court are solemn admissions of fact. They are binding and conclusive on the parties as well as on the court. [21] Withdrawal of a stipulation without the consent of the opposing party may be allowed only by leave of court upon a showing of good cause. [22] A stipulation of fact between an employer and employee must conform to the Workers' Compensation Act, as well as to the rules of the tribunal, and must be approved by the judge as binding on the parties. [23] Neither the trial judge nor the three-judge panel was ever asked to relieve the employer of the legal effect of its broad stipulation upon the latter's showing that the terms of the in-court concession to the worker were avoidable or upon some other tenable legal ground. Implicit in the employer's broad, open-court pre-hearing stipulation is its clear admission that the worker's condition has reverted to a healing period stage and that he is thus in need of further medical treatment. The stipulation is hence sufficient to dispense with proof that would establish a postaward recurrence of the healing period. Because by the stipulation the medical proof's sufficiency was specifically characterized as an issue in contest, we can find no employer's waiver of expert evidence to show a causal link between the worker's need for the requested transplant and his adjudicated accidental injury. Neither may the stipulation be viewed as broad enough to dispense with proved scientific justification for the procedure as an employer-borne expense for curing a compensable condition.