Hotel Must Pay for Beaten Woman’s Security System

(CN) - A home security system should be covered under workers' compensation as a medical expense for a 67-year-old woman who was beaten with a baseball bat while working at a hotel, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled.

Carol Simmons was working at the Comfort Suites hotel in Chestertown when a burglar attacked her with a bat and left her for dead in a pool of blood. She suffered skull fractures and a severe brain injury.

Simmons asked the hotel to pay for a home security system to allay her fears.

The Workers' Compensation Commission allowed the system to be covered as a medical expense, and the hotel asked for judicial review. The circuit court reversed the decision to allow the expense.

On appeal, Judge Graeff ruled that it was not as important to consider whether the home security system is medical equipment, as it is to determine whether it would provide medical relief in Simmons' individual case.

"Where there is a recommendation from a medical professional that a device or service be provided because it will provide therapeutic medical relief from the effects of the injury," Graeff wrote, "the determination whether it is compensable medical treatment is a question of fact that should be determined under the circumstances of the particular case."

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