State ex rel. Meris v. Indus. Comm

In State ex rel. Meris v. Indus. Comm., 108 Ohio St.3d 113, 2006 Ohio 247, 841 N.E.2d 300, the claimant was injured in 1994 and filed an application for PTD compensation in 2001. On that application, the claimant indicated that he had been a laborer from 1987 to 1994 and a painter after 1994. The commission granted the claimant's application for PTD compensation. The BWC sought reconsideration because the claimant had not told the examining physicians that he had sold fish intermittently since 1994. Because the medical reports upon which the commission originally relied did not contain information about the claimant's fish selling, the commission found the reports defective and denied him PTD compensation. The claimant filed a writ of mandamus in this court and, after overruling objections to the magistrate's decision, this court sustained objections and denied the writ finding that the commission did not abuse its discretion in finding the medical reports to be defective. The claimant appealed and the Supreme Court of Ohio reversed the judgment of the court of appeals after finding that the medical reports were not fatally defective. The Meris court stated that an examining physician's lack of knowledge that the claimant had worked years before he applied for PTD compensation had no bearing on the claimant's medical condition and capacity for work at the time they examined him. As such, the court found that the lack of reference to that job in the disputed medical reports did not render the reports fatally defective and found that the initial SHO did not commit clear error in relying on them.