Compensation of Stoneman v. State Accident Insurance Fund

Claimant appeáls from a Workers’ Compensation Board order, affirming the order of the referee, holding that claimant failed to meet his burden of proving that his disability was the product of either a new injury or an aggravation of an earlier injury as opposed to the natural progression of a degenerative hip disease. Claimant contends that under the procedural posture of the case, the issue of the underlying com-pensability was improperly reached.

The essential facts are as follows:

Claimant was injured in October, 1975, when he was pinned by a log against a tree stump, dangling upside down…