Kohlman v. Indiana University

It appears that many jurisdictions make permanent partial awards not for physical injury as such but for “disability” produced by the physical condition. 1C Larson Workmen’s Compensation Law § 57.11 (1996). Such treatment would account for the use of the words “injury”, “impairment” and “disability” interchangeably. Even the Larson treatise itself uses the phrase “permanent disability ” (emphasis supplied), when referring only to an award for purely physical functional loss. Id., § 57.13. That is not the case in Indiana. In this state the word “impairment” refers to the physical injury itself…