Blackburn v. Workers' Compensation Division

DAVIS, Chief Justice:

This appeal presents a challenge to the way permanent partial disability awards have been determined in Workers’ Compensation hearing loss cases since this Court handed down its decision in Bilbrey v. Workers’ Compensation Commissioner, 186 W.Va. 319, 412 S.E.2d 513 (1991). Particularly, Mr. Jasper Blackburn challenges the practice of automatically basing a disability award on the audiogram demonstrating the lowest level of hearing loss when there is a discrepancy between audiograms that exceeds the margin of error. We find that additional rules should be promulgated to…