LOIS Attorney Kristine Rosales and LOIS Paralegal Andrea Hayles secured a labor market attachment win in a New York Workers’ Compensation case against a Claimant who was directed to produce job search proofs. During trial, Attorney Rosales impugned the credibility of the Claimant during cross-examination, whereby she elicited favorable concessions, including that the Claimant did not know his work restrictions; that his applications to jobs did not correlate to his experience, qualifications, or capacity to perform; that the Claimant attended ACCES-VR appointments only five days before the hearing; and that there was no follow-up on his job applications. Rosales maintained that there was no good faith effort in the job search based on the Claimant’s failure to look for work within his medical restrictions, failure to actively participate with an employment agency, and failure to show that the job search was independent, timely, diligent, and persistent.
The Law Judge accepted Rosales’s position and ruled that based on the record, the Claimant is not attached to labor market. The Law Judge relied on the fact that the Claimant was directed to perform job search efforts three months earlier, but he only produced work search of not more than 10 jobs. He found that this was not a persistent job search. Further, the Law Judge found that the Claimant’s registration with ACCES-VR only five days prior to the hearing did not show that it was a timely, diligent, persistent, or an engaged effort. Thus, the job search was not adequate under the Workers’ Compensation Board’s American Axle decision. As a result of the favorable outcome, ongoing indemnity payments were suspended.
