Supreme Court Splits on Benefits Due to Worker in Vegetative State

A narrowly divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a worker stuck in a persistent vegetative state due to complications from a surgery for an industrial injury was not entitled to a scheduled award for the loss of his vision and hearing.The court's four-justice majority concluded in a decision Tuesday that claimant George Smith was not due any additional compensation because he had already been awarded workers' compensation benefits for his anoxic brain damage, and it appeared that his inability to process sights and sounds in his brain directly resulted from that allowed condition as op...