Leeper v. Department of Labor & Industries

We here decide whether evidence of a worker’s inability to obtain employment is relevant to determining if an injury has left a worker permanently and totally dis abled. In 1989, the Washington Supreme Court Committee on Jury Instructions added the phrase "or obtain” to the pattern instruction which defined permanent total disability in workers’ compensation cases. The previous edition of the instruction defined total disability as a medical condition that made a worker "unable to perform a gainful occupation”. 6 Wash. Prac., WPI 155.07 (2d ed. 1980). The third edition now reads "unable to…