COLUMBUS, Ohio—An employee is entitled to compensation for the total loss of vision in one eye despite eye surgery prior to suffering a work accident, Ohio’s Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The case of State ex rel. La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries vs. Thomas involved an Ohio law which states that worker loss-of-sight awards should be based on the employee’s uncorrected vision, court records show.

Due to a corneal disease, the worker in the case had 20/200 vision before a pre-injury corneal transplant in 2005 corrected his sight to 20/50. But a 2006 accident damaged the transplant, causing his vision to revert to 20/200 before post-injury corneal surgery then restored it back to 20/50.

After the accident, Millard Thomas sought workers comp benefits, alleging he had a total loss of vision in his left eye.

But La-Z-Boy argued that a loss had not occurred because Mr. Thomas’s uncorrected vision was the same, 20/200, after the injury as it was before. The employer argued that according to Ohio law, implants and corrected vision could not factor into the case.

An appeals court acknowledged that previous cases relied on uncorrected vision to measure vision loss. But it did not rely on those cases. Instead, the appeals court ruled that denying the claim would amount to using a “nonallowed” health condition, under Ohio law, to defeat Mr. Thomas’ compensation application.

The Supreme Court affirmed.