Pizza shop must pay for injured employee’s weight-loss surgery, court rules

Boston’s The Gourmet Pizza must pay for lap-band surgery for Adam Childers, a cook at its shop in Schererville, under last month’s Indiana ruling that upheld a 4-3 decision by the state’s workers’ compensation board.

Childers, who was then 25, weighed 340 pounds in March 2007 when he was accidentally struck in the back by a freezer door.

Doctors said that he needed surgery to ease his severe pain, but that the operation would do him no good unless he first had surgery to reduce his weight, which rose to 380 pounds after the accident.

His employers agreed to pay for the back surgery but argued they were not obligated to pay for a weight-loss operation that could cost $20,000 to $25,000, because Childers was obese before he was injured.

The board and the court, however, said the surgery - and disability payments while Childers was unable to work - were covered because his weight and the accident had combined to create a single injury. They said Boston’s did not present any evidence that Childers’ weight had been a medical problem before the accident.

Boston’s attorney, Kevin Kearney of South Bend, said the company has asked the court to hear the case again.