AUGUSTA – Arthur Kotch says he remembers the pop in his back, then a feeling like an electric shock.

Kotch was at work as an armed guard at the former Maine Yankee nuclear plant in Wiscasset when he pushed open a metal hatch at the top of a spiral staircase in a security tower. It was March 1994.

“When I bent over and picked it up, my back just went pop,” he recalled Thursday. Kotch said his back hurt for days before one of his legs went numb.

It was the start of a Workers’ Compensation case that was contested all the way to the state supreme court. The case raised an issue that’s developed into the top item on the State House agenda. Debate will resume next Wednesday.

The outcome of the debate will not directly affect Kotch, who is on full disability, uses a cane and knee braces. But it could affect others whose ability to work becomes affected by pre-existing injuries.

Kotch is uneasy with all of the attention his case has drawn, but hopes some good can come from it.

“This is like airing your dirty laundry,” the 41-year-old Brunswick resident said. “It’s like watching a soap opera on TV.”

His history of injuries goes back to the early 1980s, when Kotch hurt a knee while serving in the Marine Corps. The injury required the removal of cartilage, but did not stop him from finishing his military duty, serving a second hitch and later working as a policeman in Mississippi and Georgia and as a subcontractor in Puerto Rico.

In Maine, Kotch worked four years before injuring his back at Maine Yankee, where he was employed by American Protective Services. Doctors diagnosed Kotch’s injury as a herniated disc, and he underwent surgery. Two years later, his injured knee required surgery.

To accommodate his injuries, Kotch found similar but less-strenuous work as a security guard at Wal-Mart and Ames department stores and a local hotel. But he found walking on hard surfaces aggravated the injuries.

By the end of 1999, his workers’ comp benefits had run out, and Kotch applied for an extension. In this claim, the knee injury from his Marine days became an issue.

A Workers Compensation Board hearing officer sided with Kotch, and he won an extension of benefits, but they were challenged before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The justices ruled 7-0 in Kotch’s favor in February.

“We thought that was it. I’m done fighting with the people. It’s been eight years,” Kotch said. Then he read in the newspapers Gov. Angus King wanted to reverse what by then was becoming known as the Kotch decision.

In its ruling, the court said some non-work-related injuries must be taken into account if a combination of old injuries and newer on-the-job injuries prevents a person’s return to work.

The ruling affects evaluations that determine an injured worker’s level of permanent impairment, which determines the duration of the worker’s eligibility for benefits.

There’s been broad agreement in the Legislature that the law should be rewritten to exclude non-work-related injuries. Business groups say failure to do so would cost tens of millions of dollars in added workers’ comp premiums.

But precisely identifying who should be covered has proven to be the big challenge for lawmakers. The search for middle ground continues behind the scenes this week.

“The Legislature has to remedy the situation and do so in a way that does not add extra cost to the workers’ compensation system or premiums of Maine businesses,” said Peter Gore of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce.

Kotch, the father of children ages 20, 16 and 14, said he dislikes having his case unfurled before the public, but now that it’s out there, he hopes some good can come of it.

Even though he will not lose his benefits, Kotch said he hopes new legislation does not deprive of protection workers in similar situations or make businesses reluctant to hire previously injured workers.

“There are people that are in similar situations like I am, and I was one of the lucky ones,” said Kotch, whose Navy veteran wife works. “But there’s other folks that are in a worse situation than we are, and I’m hoping that it’ll help them.”