Braaten, Darrin

Darrin Braaten, a journeyman millwright, suffered a catastrophic right elbow fracture on January 29, 2014, when he fell on an oil-slicked floor while servicing the Kellogg waffle facility, ultimately undergoing four failed surgeries that left his right arm shortened, atrophied, and functionally useless. The WCJ found injury to the right upper extremity, elbow, hand, wrist, shoulder, neck, and psyche AOE/COE, awarding 100% permanent total disability, finding the psychiatric claim compensable under the sudden-and-extraordinary and catastrophic-injury exceptions to the six-month employment rule, rejecting the QME's psychiatric apportionment as not substantial evidence, and adopting applicant's vocational expert. Defendant (The Hartford) sought reconsideration on causation by sudden/extraordinary event, average weekly wage, and the 100% PTD finding. The Board granted reconsideration for further study, then affirmed the WCJ, adopting and incorporating the WCJ's Report. The Board addressed its intervening en banc decisions in Nunes I and Nunes II, confirming that vocational evidence may address permanent disability but cannot substitute impermissible 'vocational apportionment' for valid medical apportionment, and found the record well supported.