Date: | 02/05/2002 |
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Organization: | Department of Industrial Accidents |
Docket Number: | DIA Board Nos. 008418-76, 072313-87, 064318-92 |
Location: | Boston |
Referenced Sources: | Frank Cordi v. American Saw & Manufacturing Co. |
- Employee: Frank Cordi
- Employer: American Saw & Manufacturing Co.
- Insurer: USF&G, Aetna Life and Casualty, Home Insurance
MAZE-ROTHSTEIN, J. This successive insurer case is complicated by the employee’s work related injuries to numerous body parts and multiple hearing decisions interspersed with a prior reviewing board recommittal. See Cordi v. American Saw & Mfg. Co., 12 Mass. Workers’ Comp. Rep. 432 (1998). USF&G, the first insurer in the succession, appeals a decision ordering it to pay the employee three years of weekly § 34 temporary total incapacity benefits following surgery related to the employee’s first injury to his wrist. The subject decision also sustained a prior order against the second insurer on the risk, Aetna, to pay § 35 partial incapacity benefits for an earlier period of incapacity resulting from the combined effects of the first injury to the wrist and the second injury to the shoulder.1 None of the parties appeal from that aspect of the decision. USF&G maintains that: 1) the employee failed to prove total incapacity during the entire three-year awarded benefits period; 2) regardless of whether he was totally or partially incapacitated, Aetna, the second insurer, remains liable since the second injury, to the shoulder, continued to contribute to the employee’s incapacity; and 3) if the employee is partially incapacitated, under § 35D(3), his earning capacity should be determined by a job offer made more than two years before the period of incapacity at issue. The first two issues listed above require recommittal for the following reasons. The last issue lacks merit.