Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board affirms Judge’s decision granting a petition to terminate benefits.

The Appeal Board rejected the claimant’s argument that the testimony of the employer’s medical expert did not support the judge’s finding of a termination of benefits for a low back injury because the employer’s medical expert testified that if the claimant was asymptomatic in her back prior to her slip and fall in a kitchen at work, the injury may have aggravated a pre-existing, underlying condition in her lumbar spine. But, at the judge level, the claimant admitted under cross examination that she had a prior work injury to her low back that she did not report, which caused her to experience ongoing low back symptoms. The Board noted that the potential expansion of the claimant’s low back injury, based upon the testimony of the employer’s medical expert, was dependent on whether the claimant had no prior low back complaints, which said she did (and failed to disclose). The Board, thus, held that the judge correctly found the claimant’s low back injury was limited to that of a lumbar strain and sprain from which she was fully recovered. The decision was affirmed.