Opinion ID: 2551330
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The board's refusal to require an EME before the hearing

Text: We review an agency's application of a statute or regulation to a particular factual situation for abuse of discretion or arbitrariness. [35] The board did not abuse its discretion by denying AT & T's March 2003 pre-hearing request for a follow-up EME. Alaska Statute 23.30.095(e) provides that a medical examination requested by the employer not less than 14 days after injury, and every 60 days thereafter, shall be presumed to be reasonable. AT & T made its request for a follow-up EME within the time limits set out in that statute. Before making its March 2003 request, AT & T made its last request in September 2000 that Orchitt attend a medical examination. Due to Orchitt's new expert reports, AT & T scheduled a follow-up EME in early April 2003. The board decided that the statutory presumption for an EME was overcome because AT & T requested the follow-up EME too close to the April 8, 2003 hearing date. At the April 1 hearing, the board gave AT & T the option of obtaining a follow-up EME after the hearing. The board later ruled that after the hearing ended it would not leave the record open for AT & T to submit a follow-up EME. Although it may appear that the board reversed course, AT & T told the board on April 8 that it wanted the record to close the following day, April 9. Because AT & T affirmatively asked that the record close on April 9, there was no reason for the board to leave the record open for AT & T to submit a follow-up EME. We cannot determine whether AT & T could have been harmed by the board's action in denying AT & T's request for a pre-hearing follow-up EME, because AT & T apparently took no action after the hearing to obtain a follow-up EME. The board had given AT & T an opportunity to obtain a post-hearing EME. Nothing prevented AT & T from scheduling an EME after the hearing and petitioning the board to reopen the record to consider it. [36] If the board had then refused to reopen the record to consider the EME, the EME would have functioned like an offer of proof available to any appellate tribunal determining whether AT & T was harmed by the board's failure to require an EME before the hearing or its refusal to consider any evidence produced by the EME. [37] And if the board had reopened the record and considered the EME evidence, any possible error in failing to require a pre-hearing EME would have been harmless. Moreover, even though AT & T makes much of the board's denial of a pre-hearing follow-up EME, it does not explain why other measures short of an EME would have been unsuccessful in rebutting Orchitt's last-minute experts. AT & T does not explain, for example, why it could not have called or why it did not call Dr. Swanson, the ophthalmologist who examined Orchitt and found nothing wrong, as a witness to rebut Dr. Keene's report. It also does not explain why cross-examination without an EME might not have been effective. AT & T also does not explain why it needed an actual examination of Orchitt when it could have used the raw data generated by Dr. May's tests of Orchitt. [38] Furthermore, Dr. Robinson, one of AT & T's experts, testified at the hearing that he had read Dr. May's report, and he offered general testimony tending to discount neuropsychological testing. Finally, AT & T did not object at the end of the hearing to closing the record. It did not ask to present rebuttal evidence in any form other than a follow-up EME, nor did it make an offer of proof about what evidence it might have offered in rebuttal. A party's failure to make an offer of proof acts as a waiver of any claim of error regarding the exclusion of unspecified evidence. [39]