Opinion ID: 2639320
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The court's dismissal of Dr. Riederer's testimony as predictive is both factually incorrect and doctrinally troublesome.

Text: Dr. Riederer testified that he did not observe the normal indicia of a serious ankle injury upon examining Wollaston seventy-two hours after the work-related accident. He repeatedly testified that Wollaston's ankle was weight-bearing, and not discolored or swollen. He further testified that while his physical examination revealed some tenderness on the inside of the ankle, it produced no objective indicia of the posterior ligament or tendon trauma that Wollaston claimed was the primary source of his permanent partial impairment. Based on these clinical observations, Dr. Riederer diagnosed Wollaston with a ligamentous injury on the inside of the ankle/foot structurea mild to modest ankle sprain. There is nothing predictive or speculative about this diagnosis. Further, there is nothing inherently insufficient about Dr. Riederer's estimation of Wollaston's likely recovery time. Dr. Riederer thought Wollaston would fully recover within one to two weeks. This estimation was based on Dr. Riederer's sound medical examination in combination with years of experience dealing with many types of ankle injuries of different levels of severity. His opinion should not be dismissed simply because Wollaston did not return for a check-up. The court, however, dismisses Dr. Riederer's prognosis as predictive based on a fixed past perspective, [2] because Dr. Riederer's contemporaneous recovery estimation and subsequent testimony were based upon a single examination performed before Wollaston had fully recovered from his injury. Many recovery prognoses made by original treating physicians would be subject to the same criticism. [3] I think it is undesirable to reject such evidence. Employees may not return for follow-up treatment or examination to the physicians who first treated them, or may still be in the early stages of recovery when they do so. But the original physician's observations, diagnoses, and prognoses are closest in time to the injury and least likely to be influenced by litigation strategy. By signaling that the board should disregard these physicians' analyses, the court unduly limits useful and relevant expert evidence of the employee's condition. This restriction may increase litigation costs by forcing parties to hire additional experts rather than rely on the opinions of the original treating physicians. And this limitation may disadvantage both employees and employers: an opinion favorable to the employee's claim would be entitled to little weight when the board determines whether the employee has proved his claim by a preponderance of the evidence.