The Determination of Causation in OEM: Where Law and Logic Often Conflict

TRACK: Regulatory, Legal, Military, and Governmental OEM

Jason Mark Carlton, JD, Gitto & Niefer, LLP, Binghamton, NY
Theodore F. Them, MD, MS, PhD, MPH, FACOEM, Guthrie Medical Group, PC, Sayre, PA

The determination of (occupational) causation is an essential component of routine workers’ compensation medical management in Independent Medical Examinations (IMEs), and very frequently in civil cases revolving around environmental toxicology/toxic tort. While the legal standard for such a professional, medical opinion is typically to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, that term is both concurrently vague and misguided. This presentation will focus, based on both didactic and exemplary case-history components, on the credible, logical, defensible, and evidence-based approach toward establishing medical causation and toward effectively deconstructing/rebutting faulty, established causation arguments.