I attended a Board ordered deposition of Dr. Louis Noce on your behalf in the above-referenced matter on 07/24017. Catherine Coyne was present on behalf of the claimant and our hearing reporter was Linda Engel. As you know, this is a controverted claim involving either an occupational disease or an accident to the neck. Please see my 07/14/17 report for a detailed history of the this case. As you know, we previously have taken the testimony of the claimant and a lay witness for the employer. We do not have an IME in this case but we are taking the testimony of the attending surgeon, Dr. Noce. Dr. Noce testified today that he was familiar with the claimant. He said he first saw the claimant at St. Peter’s emergency room just prior …show more content…
This also could have included shooting pain in both the arms and legs. I had the doctor confirm that he never received a history from the claimant of the discrete incident on 12/15/16. I tried to push the doctor off of his opinion on causal relationship, pointing out that there were two different histories of work related injuries but the doctor was insistent that it really did not matter because he felt this was really due to the claimant’s job. He said there might have been an incident that aggravated symptoms but he felt it was part of the heavy duty work the claimant was doing. The doctor did confirm that the claimant was released to return to work without any restrictions on 06/05/17 as he had an excellent result from his surgery. The doctor would not agree that the claimant’s condition could have developed without trauma or just by activities of daily living. He said there would had to been some more serious activity and he no history other then the history of the claimant’s work activities. So he felt that was the cause of the claimant’s