Rhode Island § 28-35-45 - Workers’ Compensation — Procedure

§ 28-35-45. Review and modification of decrees.

(a) At any time after the date of the approval of any agreement or at any time after the date of the entry of any decree concerning compensation, and if compensation has ceased under the agreement or decree, within ten (10) years after that, any agreement, award, order, finding, or decree may be from time to time reviewed by the workers’ compensation court, upon its own motion or upon a petition of either party upon forms prescribed by the court, after due notice to the interested parties:

(1) Upon the ground that the:

(i) Incapacity of the injured employee has diminished, ended, increased, or returned;

(ii) Employee has recovered from the effects of his or her work-related injury and is disabled only as a result of a preexisting condition;

(iii) Employee is able to return to the same work he or she performed at the time of his or her injury;

(iv) Employee has refused an offer of suitable employment; or

(v) Weekly compensation payments have been based upon an erroneous average weekly wage; or

(2) Regarding any other obligation established under chapters 29 — 38 of this title.

(b) Upon this review, the workers’ compensation court may decrease, suspend, increase, commence, or recommence compensation payments in accordance with the facts, or make any other order that the justice of the case may require. No review shall affect the agreement, award, order, finding, or decree as regards money already paid, except that an award increasing the compensation rate may be made effective from the date of the injury, and except that if any part of the compensation due or to become due is unpaid, an award decreasing the compensation rate may be made effective from the date of injury, and any payments made prior thereto in excess of the decreased rate shall be deducted from any unpaid compensation, in the manner and by the methods that may be determined by the workers’ compensation court.

(c) Relief on review shall not be denied an employee or granted an employer or his or her insurer on the grounds that the employee is incapacitated by an injury or disease that is different from the one for which the employee was paid compensation if the injury or disease incapacitating the employee results from an injury or disease for which the employee was paid compensation.