An employee at a Montana nursing home who underwent surgery for a compensable right shoulder injury was later found to be eligible for compensation for an overuse injury on her left shoulder. She had been using her left arm more to compensate for her right arm injury.

Jenny York worked as a Licensed Practical Nurse for Lewis and Clark County at the Cooney Nursing Home. Her job was classified as heavy duty. She injured her right shoulder while lifting a resident in 2007. Her claim was accepted, and she went through physical therapy though it did not completely heal her injury. She started to use her left shoulder more than usual. She went to work at the Veteran’s Administration’s Medical Center at Fort Harrison and worked as an LPN where she frequently lifted and moved patients and pushed a heavy medication cart. She was still complaining of shoulder pain but since she had just started a new job she was unable to schedule surgery until 2011 when she had surgery to repair her rotator cuff on her right shoulder. She went back to work several months later but continued to feel pain and started to receive corticosteroid injections. She was reassigned to a sedentary position that required her to frequently open and close a window, which she primarily did with her left hand because of the pain in her right shoulder.

She continued to struggle with right shoulder pain and ultimately left work, undergoing more procedures to try to alleviate the pain. In 2013 she was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff and labrum in her left shoulder, and her physician determined it was an overuse syndrome that was caused by her inability to fully use her right shoulder. She sought temporary total disability or partial total disability benefits. Her employer initially denied her claim, saying that they relied on the opinion of an IME performed by a different physician who said her condition was degenerative and could not be fully attributed to overuse or caused fully by her employment.

The Workers’ Compensation Court of Montana gave greater weight to her treating physician and his opinion. They awarded her benefits and said that if her employer was liable for her work-related injury they are liable for the subsequent injury. She was not awarded temporary total disability benefits because she had not suffered a total wage loss because of her injury. She was released to go back to work by her physician but has not done so out of her own will. She is also not eligible for permanent total disability benefits because she is not at MMI and there is not enough evidence to prove she cannot find regular employment because of her condition.

Read the case here.