Answered on Mar 10, 2014
This is going to be a very fact specific question and your attorney is going to have to earn his keep by doing some research for you. However, without knowing the prior injury occurred (work related or not), it will like come down to whether this is a new injury, aggravation of a prior injury or a reoccurrence of some prior work or nonwork related injury. It will be a bit of a puzzle and will like not be an easy case, but knowing the goals of the WC Code and the law out there on nonwork related conditions that effect an ongoing disability, you have a reasonable shot. If the surgery is reasonable, necessary and related to a work injury/aggravation you should be able to have the surgery. It will also likely be important that the work relation is material and the disability is not related solely to some other nonwork factor. Easiest answer here is, yes, you definitely need an attorney. Good luck.