Farris v. Bryant Grinder Corp‪.‬

1. This appeal involves a dispute between two insurance companies as to which one should pay workers compensation benefits for an injury to Bryant Grinder Corporation (Bryant Grinder) employee Charles Farris. Appellant, Wausau Insurance Company (Wausau), appeals a superior court jury determination that Farris suffered a recurrence of a previous injury and therefore that it was liable instead of AIG Insurance Company (AIG), successor to Wausau and insurer at the time of Farriss later injury. On appeal, Wausau argues that the superior court erred by failing to: (1) allocate a burden of proof to one of the parties; (2) reformulate the certified question into five separate interrogatories; and (3) provide a specific jury instruction on the last injurious exposure rule. We find that although failure to allocate a burden of proof was error, it was harmless, and the jury instructions were otherwise within the courts discretion. We affirm.