Appeals court vacates soccer player’s comp claim denial

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals on Thursday vacated a Compensation Review Board decision upholding denial of workers compensation benefits for an injured professional soccer player.

In Skylar M. Little v. District of Columbia Department of Employment Services and Washington Freedom et al., the appeals court said the decision to deny Ms. Little benefits related to a knee injury was improper.

Ms. Little, who now goes by Skylar Meinhardt, played for the Washington Freedom soccer team in Washington, D.C., in the early 2000s. She suffered a left knee injury at the time but later filed a workers comp claim related to a separate right knee injury.

Ms. Meinhardt claimed her right knee injury was caused by her overcompensating for the left knee problems.

She had surgeries to repair a torn right knee meniscus in 2016 and 2019, and later petitioned for right knee benefits.

An administrative law judge determined the right knee injury wasn’t work-related, a decision upheld by the review board.

The appeals court said the judge’s and review board’s analyses were “fatally infected by their mistaken views about what Meinhardt’s claims were,” because of the discrepancy over the connection between the two injuries.

The appeals court remanded the case to the review board to determine whether the right knee injury is compensable.