May Court Hearing Workers' Comp Appeal Consider Both Direct Causation and Aggravation of Condition?

When Aggravation Was Not Asserted at Administrative Hearing

Joseph Starkey v. Builders FirstSource Ohio Valley, LLC, and Administrator, Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, Case no. 2010-0924

1st District Court of Appeals (Hamilton County)

ISSUES: If a workers' compensation claimant does not assert during administrative proceedings the alternative theories that a medical condition for which benefits are sought was either directly caused by a workplace accident or was a pre-existing condition aggravated by a work accident, and his claim is administratively denied, has the claimant forfeited the right to later raise an aggravation theory of causation during an R.C. 4123.512 appeal proceeding, and/or his right to file a new claim asserting the same condition based on an aggravation theory of causation?