Sean Gregorek
v.
Dynapower Corporation
Opinion No. 03-21WC
Vermont Workers Compensation Decisions
State of Vermont Department of Labor
January 28, 2021
State
File No. GG-62023
Hearing
held via Skype on October 5, 2020
Record
closed on November 16, 2020
Christopher McVeigh, Esq., for Claimant.
William Blake, Esq., for Defendant.
Stephen W. Brown, Administrative Law Judge
OPINION
AND ORDER
Michael A. Harrington Commissioner
ISSUE
PRESENTED:
What is
the extent, if any, of Claimant’s permanent partial
disability attributable to his work-related hearing loss
and/or tinnitus?
EXHIBIT:
Joint
Medical Exhibit (“JME”)
1
FINDINGS
OF FACT:
1. I
take judicial notice of all relevant forms in the
Department’s file for this claim, and of the AMA Guides
to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, 5th ed. (the
“AMA Guides”).
2.
Claimant is a 58-year-old man residing in Milton, Vermont.
3.
Defendant is a manufacturer of industrial products with a
factory in South Burlington, Vermont.
4.
Between approximately June 1990 and October 2018, Defendant
employed Claimant in multiple capacities involving electrical
and mechanical subassembly work in its South Burlington
factory. Over the course of his employment with Defendant, he
rose through the ranks and took on more managerial duties.
5. The
location of Claimant’s workstation in the factory
varied over the years. Sometimes, he worked near a high-noise
area where other employees would test Defendant’s
finished products. At other times, he worked near an area
where workers would cut sheet metal, which resulted in high
levels of noise exposure. Claimant wore hearing protection
when he knew that his coworkers would begin cutting sheet
metal, but the cutting often began with no advance warning.
In such instances, Claimant put on hearing protection after
the cutting began.
6.
Defendant began a hearing testing program in the late 1990s,
after which there was a significant lull in workplace hearing
tests for approximately a decade. Claimant’s workplace
hearing test results were as follows:
a. On November 1, 1997, Claimant’s hearing test was
normal;
b. On April 21, 1998, Claimant showed some loss in his left
ear for high pitches;
c. On July 22, 2009, Claimant demonstrated mild hearing loss;
and
d. On September 8, 2010, Claimant demonstrated mild hearing
loss.
(JME 1-9).
7. In
March 2015, at Defendant’s request, Claimant saw
audiologist Jessie Cassada, Au.D, who found that his
thresholds in both ears were within normal limits for low to
mid frequencies; however, she found “sloping to
moderate high frequency sensorineural hearing loss in the
right ear and moderately severe high frequency sensorineural
hearing loss in the left ear.” (JME 50). She
recommended binaural amplification. (Id.).
8.
Defendant subsequently accepted Claimant’s hearing loss
claim as related to his workplace noise exposure and provided
him with hearing aids.
9. In
December 2018, Claimant underwent another hearing test with
Stephanie Maloney, Au.D. at Northwestern Medical Center. Dr.
Maloney concluded that Claimant had sustained more
significant hearing loss than documented in Dr.
Cassada’s 2015 findings. Her specific findings were in
relevant part as follows:
Ear canals are clear and dry bilaterally. Jerger Type A
tympanograms bilaterally indicating normal middle ear
pressure. DPOAEs [Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions]
present in right ear at 1.5-2kHz, absent at all other
frequencies 1.5-6kHz bilaterally. Speech Reception Threshold
appropriate for hearing levels bilaterally. Word Recognition
Score 92% at 30dB SL (re SRT) for right ear and 94% at 40dB
SL (re SRT
...
