Decision  Donna L. Remillard v. TJX Companies, Inc.

Date:	05/30/2013
Organization:	Department of Industrial Accidents
Docket Number:	DIA Board No. 045803-97
Location:	Boston

• Employee: Donna L. Remillard
• Employer: TJX Companies, Inc.
• Insurer: CNA Insurance Company

FABRICANT, J. The insurer appeals from a decision awarding § 34 benefits beginning May 10, 2010, for a November 21, 1997, accepted work injury. The insurer argues the judge erred in causally relating the employee’s incapacity to the 1997 injury instead of finding a new injury related to repetitive stress and lifting at work when a successive insurer was on the risk. Because neither party raised the possibility of a new cumulative injury or successive insurer liability in a timely or meaningful way, those issues were not before the judge.¹ Therefore, as the medical evidence supports a continuing causal relationship to the 1997 injury, the judge did not err in finding the insurer responsible for the employee’s ongoing incapacity.

¹ General Laws, c. 152 § 11, states, in pertinent part:

At the hearing the [administrative judge] shall make such inquiries and investigations. . . [to] enable him to issue a decision with respect to the issues before him.