United Parcel Service v. Strothers

Summary

The Court of Appeals held that “definite proof” under the workers’ compensation statute describes the quality of evidence required at the claimant’s burden-of-production stage, not a heightened clear-and-convincing burden of persuasion. The claimant must ultimately persuade the Commission by a preponderance of the evidence, and the court concluded that Strothers’s medical opinion established definite proof that his hernia was new. The court therefore affirmed the judgment below and declined to decide the meaning of “immediate operation is needed.”