Texts and emails proved who really pulled the plug on light duty
On May 8, 2026, Hearing Chair J. Keil denied a worker about 10 months of wage-loss benefits after finding he ended modified duties.
The Alberta Appeals Commission decision, in a unanimous three-member ruling, upheld the worker's acceptable claim but reversed his entitlement to temporary total disability benefits from December 21, 2023, to September 25, 2024. The case turned on which party ended the modified work.
The worker, a concrete carpenter, reported a popping in his lower back while lifting a pipe at work on December 15, 2023. He had pre-existing symptomatic conditions, including chronic myofascial pain in his shoulders and upper back referred to physiotherapy in September 2022, and had been off work three years after a 2020 motor vehicle accident.
The employer argued the pain related entirely to those earlier conditions, asking how an already symptomatic condition could be aggravated. The panel disagreed. It noted the worker had worked for the employer six months before the injury, and the new pain was in his lower right back, anatomically distinct from the prior complaints.
A September 2024 medical consultant supported a finding of work-related aggravation, writing that the worker's "current signs and symptoms could be considered to represent a symptomatic aggravation of the pre-existing condition of nonspecific low back pain secondary to degenerative disease of the lumbar spine." That was enough to...
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