Court Opinion

ID: 9733636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:12:31.588635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:26:55.366615
License: Public Domain

Caporale, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. On January 25 of this year, in Yarns v. Leon Plastics, Inc., 237 Neb. 132, 464 N.W.2d 801 (1991), we observed that Heiliger v. Walters & Heiliger Electric, Inc., 236 Neb. 459, 461 N.W.2d 565 (1990), did nothing more than correct the improvident language we had theretofore used to describe the enhanced degree of persuasion confronting a workers’ compensation claimant suffering from a preexisting condition.
Yarns observes that our earlier language declaring that a previously impaired claimant must meet an enhanced burden of proof meant only that such a claimant faced a more difficult task in persuading the compensation court that the exacerbated condition for which he or she sought benefits would not exist but for the work-related accident.
Finding nothing which suggests that in parroting our old language the compensation court meant anything other than it was not convinced plaintiff’s preexisting condition was exacerbated by the work-related accident, I would affirm.