Thacker v. Workers' Compensation Division

This appeal from the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board (“Appeal Board”) concerns the application of Javins v. Workers’ Compensation Comm’r, 173 W.Va. 747, 320 S.E.2d 119 (1984), our seminal case on the interpretation of evidence in a workers’ compensation occupational pneumoconiosis claim. In this ease — as in many identical workers’ compensation eases — both the Workers’ Compensation Office of Judges (“Office of Judges”) and the Appeal Board ignored the evidentiary rules for workers’ compensation claims set forth in the West Virginia Code, and ignored the plain terms of our interpretation…