Interesting article. So this guy who is over 340 pounds gets accidentally hit in the back by a freezer door. His employer agrees to pay for the back surgery but gets forced by a court ruling to also pay for a weight-loss operation to improve the employee's overall health.
This is crazy. This decision, although beneficial to the particular employee in this case, will have a detrimental effect as it would make businesses think twice about hiring workers with existing medical conditions.
An Indiana court has ruled that a pizza shop must pay for a 340-pound employee's weight-loss surgery to ensure the success of another operation for a back injury he suffered at work – raising concern among businesses bracing for more such claims.
....
Boston's The Gourmet Pizza must pay for lap-band surgery for Adam Childers, a cook at the store in Schererville, under last month's Indiana ruling that upheld a 4-3 decision by the state's workers' compensation board.
Childers, who was then 25, weighed 340 pounds in March 2007 when he was accidentally struck in the back by a freezer door. Doctors said he needed surgery to ease his severe pain, but that the operation would do him no good unless he first had surgery to reduce his weight, which rose to 380 pounds after the accident.
His employers agreed to pay for the back surgery, but argued they were not obligated to pay for a weight-loss operation that could cost $20,000 to $25,000, because Childers already was obese before he was hurt.
The board and the court, however, said the surgery – and disability payments while Childers was unable to work – were covered because his weight and the accident had combined to create a single injury. They said Boston's didn't present any evidence that his weight had been a medical problem before the accident.
|
 |
Read the full article at
Court Says Employer Must Pay For 340-Pound Employee's Weight-Loss Surgery
Court Says Employer Must Pay For 340-Pound Employee's Weight-Loss Surgery
Linear Mode
