If Quality Pork Processors Inc. wants the decision it’s looking for, it will have to take its case to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

The Minnesota Appellate Court upheld a previous ruling Tuesday, siding with The American Home Assurance Company in a dispute over worker compensation deductibles for QPP employees who were diagnosed three years ago with a neurological disease that resulted from breathing a mist of pig brain tissue.

John Beckmann, of Hoversten, Johnson, Beckmann & Hovey, LLP, the Austin firm that represented QPP, said the argument was “purely a contractual dispute,” and has no affect on workers’ compensation benefit payments. QPP attested the language for how deductibles were calculated was ambiguous, and disagreed each accident should be decided separately.

Beckmann said they are weighing their options, and have not decided if they will appeal the ruling again, but the next step would be a petition for review to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

In 2009, doctors at Mayo Clinic released a report confirming QPP workers’ illness was an auto-immune response to exposure to pig brain matter. The cluster of the unusual neurological disease was first identified by the Mayo Clinic in September 2007.

The immune response attacked the workers’ nervous systems, causing painful symptoms that included weakness and fatigue to confusion and seizures.

QPP workers reportedly became infected while working on or around the line called the “head table.” At the time, QPP was one of three hog processing facilities in the U.S. that used compressed air to remove pigs’ brains. QPP has stopped using this procedure.

Kelly Wadding, owner of QPP, was not immediately available. An attorney for American Home Assurance did not return calls Wednesday.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.