Emory Universityv.Duval
Sandra Stennett Duval, a nurse at Emory University Hospital, suffered a compensable right-shoulder injury while lifting a patient. After surgery for a separate left-shoulder condition, she developed renewed right-shoulder symptoms and sought workers’ compensation benefits for additional treatment and disability. An administrative-law judge awarded benefits, but the State Board of Workers’ Compensation reversed after crediting evidence that the original injury had resolved and the later condition was unrelated. The superior court reversed the Board and remanded for an explanation of why it rejected the treating physician’s evidence. The Court of Appeals of Georgia held that the superior court applied the wrong standard of review. The Board was authorized to weigh conflicting evidence, assess credibility, and substitute its own findings for those of the administrative-law judge; a reviewing court could not reweigh that evidence and had to affirm if any record evidence supported the Board’s decision. Because the record supported the Board’s findings, the appellate court reversed the superior court’s judgment.
Loading published copy…

