Title: City of Charlottesville v. Sclafani

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

PRESENT:  Lemons, C.J., Goodwyn, Mims, Powell, Kelsey, McCullough JJ., and Millette, S.J. 
 
CITY OF CHARLOTTESVILLE, ET AL. 
 
 
 
OPINION BY 
v.  Record No. 200791 
JUSTICE CLEO E. POWELL 
 
 
 
AUGUST 26, 2021 
WILLIAM SCLAFANI 
 
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
The City of Charlottesville (the “City”) appeals the decision of the Court of Appeals 
affirming an award of workers’ compensation benefits. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
 
In May 2017, William Sclafani (“Sclafani”), a Charlottesville police officer, took part in 
a SWAT team training activity.  Sclafani played the role of the suspect in various scenarios from 
8:00 a.m. until approximately 5:00 p.m.  In this capacity, Sclafani was repeatedly put on the 
ground, handcuffed with his hands behind his back and then picked up while still in handcuffs.  
During the training, Sclafani experienced some discomfort but there was never any significant 
pain.  However, at the end of the day he discovered that he could not straighten his left arm to 
reach the steering wheel of his car and go home.  As the evening progressed, Sclafani found that 
he could no longer move his arm up or down.  According to Sclafani, he did not feel any pain 
until the next morning. 
 
Sclafani reported his injury to his supervisor but did not seek medical treatment for 
several days.  After seeing a nurse practitioner, he was advised to see a specialist if his arm did 
not improve in three weeks.  Sclafani subsequently sought treatment with an orthopedist who 
gave him a steroid injection and sent him to physical therapy.  Sclafani’s shoulder eventually 
 
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required surgery for rotator cuff tears and traumatic impingement syndrome.1  After his surgery, 
Sclafani transitioned back to light-duty and then full-duty work. 
 
Sclafani filed a workers’ compensation claim seeking an award of medical benefits and 
temporary total disability benefits for the period beginning five days before his surgery and 
lasting until his release to light-duty work.  The City denied that Sclafani had suffered a 
compensable injury by accident.  During a deposition, Sclafani testified that he was never 
roughly handled during the training nor did he ever experience any sudden pain or feel a pop or 
crack.  However, he recalled that, during the last scenario, he “was picked up a little weird” and 
“felt some discomfort.”  When he was subsequently asked if that was the incident that he 
believed resulted in his injury, Sclafani responded, “Oh, yeah.  There’s no doubt.” 
 
After a hearing before a Deputy Commissioner, Sclafani’s claim was initially denied on 
the basis that, although Sclafani had clearly suffered an injury, he failed to establish an 
identifiable incident or sudden precipitating event that caused the injury.  Sclafani requested a 
review by the full Commission.  The Commission reversed the Deputy Commissioner’s ruling 
and entered an award of benefits.  According to the Commission, “the training session provided 
 
 
1 Shoulder impingement syndrome is defined as 
a disorder that results from repeated “microtrauma” to the various 
structures that border the subacromial space, primarily the 
supraspinatus tendon, the long head of the biceps (especially at the 
“bicipital groove” where the muscle traverses the upper end of the 
humerus), and the subacromial bursa. Without intervention, the 
condition naturally progresses, as the impingement of the 
tendon/bursa, done on a fairly frequent basis, causes inflammation, 
which reduces the already small space, increasing the frequency 
and severity of impingement which, over time, can lead to 
complete tears of the rotator cuff. 
Christine Stewart & Betty Brutman, Shoulder impingement syndrome – Overview, Attorneys 
Medical Advisor § 72:14 (April 2021 update). 
 
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the necessary rigidity of temporal precision to constitute one event” and, therefore, Sclafani had 
sufficiently established the identifiable incident that had caused the injury. 
 
The City appealed the Commission’s decision to the Court of Appeals.  In a published 
opinion, the Court of Appeals reversed the Commission’s ruling on the basis that “the 
Commission assumed but failed to find that Sclafani’s testimony established an identifiable 
incident with sufficient temporal precision.”  City of Charlottesville v. Sclafani, 70 Va. App. 613, 
623 (2019) (hereafter, “Sclafani I”).  The Court of Appeals acknowledged that “[t]he assumption 
that Sclafani sustained a non-cumulative injury during the last four hours of training was justified 
based on Sclafani’s own testimony,” but noted that the Commission had based its decision on a 
finding that the injury had occurred during the entire eight-hour training session rather than just 
the last four hours.  Id.  It remanded the case to the Commission to make a factual finding 
regarding “whether Sclafani’s injury occurred during the four post-lunch hours of the training.”  
Id. 
 
On remand, the Commission noted that Sclafani did not notice any problems with his 
shoulder prior to lunch, whereas after lunch, he noted some discomfort.  As such, the 
Commission found that Sclafani “sustained a non-cumulative injury during the last four hours of 
training.”  The City again appealed to the Court of Appeals. 
 
On appeal, the Court of Appeals ruled that it would not consider whether Sclafani had 
“suffered a compensable, discrete injury by accident arising out of employment” or “met his 
burden to show an identifiable incident” on the basis that those issues had previously been raised 
and adversely decided in Sclafani I and the City never appealed those rulings to this Court.  The 
Court of Appeals further affirmed the Commission’s determination that Sclafani had satisfied his 
burden to prove that he had incurred his injury at a reasonably identifiable time, and ruled that 
 
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this conclusion was mutually exclusive with the city’s assertion that the injury was cumulative in 
nature. 
 
The City appeals. 
II.  ANALYSIS 
 
On appeal, the City initially asserts that the Court of Appeals erred in its application of 
the law of the case doctrine.  It next contends that the Court of Appeals and the Commission 
erred in finding that Sclafani suffered a compensable, discrete injury arising out of employment 
during the training session.  Specifically, the City claims that Sclafani failed to meet his burden 
of demonstrating that an identifiable accident caused his injury as opposed to repetitive trauma. 
A.  LAW OF THE CASE 
 
The City first argues that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the law of the case 
doctrine precluded its review of whether a compensable injury arising out of Sclafani’s 
employment occurred and whether he met his burden to show an identifiable accident was the 
cause of that injury.  The City insists that the present case is analogous to Uninsured Employer’s 
Fund v. Thrush, 255 Va. 14, 19 (1998), where we held that a matter previously raised on appeal 
to the Court of Appeals and remanded to the lower tribunal is not subject to the law of the case 
doctrine on a subsequent appeal.  We agree. 
 
This Court has explained the law of the case doctrine as follows: 
Where there have been two appeals in the same case, between the 
same parties, and the facts are the same, nothing decided on the 
first appeal can be re-examined on a second appeal.  Right or 
wrong, it is binding on both the trial court and the appellate court, 
and is not subject to re-examination by either.  For the purpose of 
that case, though only for that case, the decision on the first appeal 
is the law. 
Steinman v. Clinchfield Coal Corp., 121 Va. 611, 620 (1917). 
 
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The Court has further recognized that “when a party fails to challenge a decision rendered 
by a court at one stage of litigation, that party is deemed to have waived [its] right to challenge 
that decision during later stages of the ‘same litigation.’”  Miller-Jenkins v. Miller-Jenkins, 276 
Va. 19, 26 (2008).  Thus, “[t]he ‘law of the case’ doctrine applies both to issues that were 
actually decided by the court, and also to issues ‘necessarily involved in the first appeal, whether 
actually adjudicated or not.’”  Id. (quoting Kemp v. Miller, 160 Va. 280, 285 (1933)). 
 
We have, however, recognized an exception to the law of the case doctrine.  In Thrush, 
the employer appealed the Commission’s decision regarding the amount of benefits to award.  
255 Va. at 17.  The Court of Appeals reversed the award with directions that the Commission 
make a new award.  Id.  The Court of Appeals did not modify the award, but it clearly indicated 
the manner in which it should be modified.  Id.  On remand, the Commission followed the Court 
of Appeals’ guidance and entered a new award.  Id.  The employer again appealed the amount of 
benefits awarded.  Id.  The Court of Appeals, noting that the issue was the same issue that had 
been previously raised, ruled that the law of the case doctrine barred its further consideration of 
the matter.  Id. at 18.  On appeal to this Court, we held that, under these circumstances, where the 
Court of Appeals could have modified the ruling of the Commission, but chose instead to remand 
the matter, the law of the case doctrine had no application.  Id. at 19.  We explained that, in 
enacting Code § 17–116.09,2 the General Assembly clearly intended to allow a party to choose 
between appealing the Court of Appeals’ decision to this Court or accepting the remand without 
“waiv[ing] its right to seek an ultimate appeal to this Court from an unfavorable decision 
following the remand.”  Id. 
 
 
2 Code § 17–116.09 was subsequently recodified as Code § 17.1-412.  1998 Acts ch. 872. 
 
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The posture of the present case is virtually identical to that of Thrush.  In Sclafani I, the 
Court of Appeals explicitly acknowledged that whether the Commission properly determined 
that Sclafani had suffered a discrete, compensable injury arising out of his employment and 
whether Sclafani met his burden to show such an injury were the issues before it.  70 Va. App. at 
618.  The Court of Appeals noted that both of these issues turned on whether Sclafani’s evidence 
provided sufficient temporal proof as to when the injury occurred.  Id. at 620.  However, rather 
than address the sufficiency of Sclafani’s evidence, the Court of Appeals ruled that the 
Commission’s finding lacked “sufficient temporal precision” due to the Commission’s reliance 
on the entire eight-hour training session.  Id. at 623.  Specifically, the Court of Appeals stated 
that “[i]t appears . . . that the Commission assumed but failed to find that Sclafani’s testimony 
established an identifiable incident with sufficient temporal precision.”  Id.  The Court of 
Appeals did not modify the Commission’s finding; instead, it remanded the matter, while 
strongly indicating that a finding that the shoulder injury occurred during the four-hour post-
lunch period was supported by the record and would be sufficiently temporally precise.  Id.  On 
remand, the Commission followed the Court of Appeals’ guidance regarding when the shoulder 
injury occurred, which was again appealed by the City. 
 
Under the precedent established in Thrush, the City’s acceptance of the Court of Appeals’ 
decision to remand the matter did not bar it from subsequently appealing an unfavorable ruling 
by the Commission.  Thus, the Court of Appeals erred in its application of the law of the case 
doctrine.  Accordingly, we will reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals and consider the 
arguments raised by the City regarding whether a compensable injury arising out of Sclafani’s 
employment occurred and whether Sclafani met his burden to show an identifiable accident was 
the cause of that injury. 
 
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B.  INJURY BY ACCIDENT 
 
Having determined that the law of case doctrine does not bar consideration of whether a 
compensable injury arising out of Sclafani’s employment occurred or whether he met his burden 
to show an identifiable accident was the cause of that injury, we will address those issues here.  
The City argues that, because Sclafani cannot identify the specific incident that led to his injury, 
he failed to meet his burden and, therefore, the Court of Appeals and the Commission erred in 
finding that he suffered a compensable, discrete injury by accident arising out of his 
employment.  According to the City, Sclafani’s evidence only established that his injury 
occurred at some point during the four-hour period after lunch.  The City insists that such 
evidence is not sufficiently bound to the rigid temporal precision required under the Virginia 
Workers’ Compensation Act (the “Act”).  To the extent that the Court of Appeals appears to 
have established a bright-line rule that a four-hour time period is sufficiently temporally precise 
to establish a compensable injury under the Act, we agree with the City. 
 
This Court has long recognized that the Act requires a claimant to prove, by a 
preponderance of the evidence, (1) an “‘injury by accident’ or occupational disease, (2) arising 
out of, and (3) in the course of, the employment.”  Morris v. Morris, 238 Va. 578, 584 (1989) 
(internal citation omitted).  Here, whether Sclafani’s injury arose out of and occurred in the 
course of his employment is not at issue; the sole issue before the Court is whether there was 
sufficient evidence to prove that he suffered an “injury by accident” within the meaning of the 
Act. 
 
To demonstrate an injury by accident “a claimant must prove that the cause of his injury 
was an identifiable incident or sudden precipitating event and that it resulted in an obvious 
sudden mechanical or structural change in the body.”  Morris, 238 Va. at 589 (emphases in 
 
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original).  Our jurisprudence establishes that the requisite causative event must be more than a 
simple reference to a “work activity;” it must be a specific occurrence that can be temporally 
fixed with reasonable accuracy.  Id.  Merely establishing that a claimant was engaged in work 
activity during the discrete time period in which the injury occurred is insufficient.  Id. at 588. 
 
In Morris, the Court specifically discussed the Court of Appeals’ adoption of the “three 
hour test,” which is somewhat similar to the approach it took in this case.  Under the three hour 
test, “any work-related injury resulting from stress which lasts three hours or less is deemed an 
‘injury by accident’; injuries resulting from stress extending over a longer period fail to meet the 
test.”  Id.  In rejecting this test, the Court noted that it did not require the claimant to identify the 
specific causative event that resulted in the injury.  Rather, the three hour test only required that a 
claimant establish they were engaged in “‘work activity’ within a ‘reasonably discrete time 
frame.’”  Id.  The Court’s explicit rejection of this test made it clear the proper focus was not on 
the specific time frame in which the accident occurred, but on the specific causative event that 
precipitated the accident because “[s]uch events are inevitably ‘bounded with rigid temporal 
precision.’”  Id. at 588-89.3 
 
The present case exemplifies the reason we rejected the three hour test in Morris.  Here, 
the evidence establishes that the afternoon training involved multiple different scenarios where 
Sclafani “would be put on the ground and cuffed” or he would “just get on the ground and be 
cuffed and be picked up and moved away.”  In other words, the afternoon training session 
involved multiple potential causative events occurring throughout the four-hour post-lunch 
 
 
3 That is not to say, however, that a single causative event cannot occur over an extended 
period of time.  See, e.g., Van Buren v. Augusta County, 66 Va. App. 441, 455 (2016) 
(recognizing that a rescue occurring over a forty-five-minute period was “one event, not 
numerous discrete events” for the purpose of determining whether the claimant’s injury occurred 
during an identifiable event). 
 
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period.  Clearly, a claim asserting that an injury occurred during a time period where multiple 
potential causative events occur is not sufficiently temporally precise to establish a compensable 
injury.  Accordingly, the Court of Appeals’ decision affirming the Commission’s finding on this 
basis was erroneous. 
 
Although we have determined that the Court of Appeals’ basis for affirming the 
Commission was erroneous, we find that the record ultimately supports its decision and, 
therefore, we will uphold its judgment through the application of the right result for the wrong 
reason doctrine.  See Haynes v. Haggerty, 291 Va. 301, 305 (2016) (“In instances where a 
[lower] court’s decision is correct, but its reasoning is incorrect, and the record supports the 
correct reason, we uphold the judgment pursuant to the right result for the wrong reason 
doctrine.”).4  As previously noted, our jurisprudence requires a claimant to fix the time of the 
specific incident that caused the injury with reasonable accuracy.  Morris, 238 Va. at 589.  Here, 
there is credible evidence which supports Sclafani’s assertion that his injury occurred as a result 
of a specific incident during the final scenario. 
 
The Commission’s findings of fact “are conclusive and binding on appeal,” Carrington v. 
Aquatic Co., 297 Va. 520, 522 (2019); see also Code § 65.2-706 (stating that the Commission’s 
award “shall be conclusive and binding as to all questions of fact”), provided that there is 
credible evidence to support those findings, Virginia Elec. & Power Co. v. Kremposky, 227 Va. 
265, 269 (1984).  Further, we “construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the prevailing 
 
 
4 Our use of the right result for the wrong reason doctrine in the present case, as opposed 
to the right result for a different reason doctrine, is due to the subtle distinction between the two 
doctrines.  Notably, the right result for a different reason doctrine applies “in cases . . . in which 
we express no view on the correctness of the lower court’s rationale.”  Rickman v. 
Commonwealth, 294 Va. 531, 542 (2017) (emphasis added).  Thus, that doctrine is inapplicable 
here. 
 
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part[y] before the Commission.”  Jeffreys v. Uninsured Emp’r’s Fund, 297 Va. 82, 87 (2019).  
So viewed, we note that Sclafani testified that, during the last scenario of the day, he was “picked 
up a little weird” and he “felt some discomfort.”  When he was subsequently asked if that was 
the incident that caused his injury, Sclafani unequivocally answered: “Oh, yeah.  There’s no 
doubt.”  Similarly, in a recorded statement with the City’s insurance provider, Sclafani stated 
that, in “one of the scenarios at the end,” his shoulder “got tweak[ed] a little.”  This evidence was 
uncontradicted and we cannot say that it was inherently incredible or inconsistent with the other 
facts in the record.  See generally Breckenridge v. Marval Poultry Co., 228 Va. 191, 195 (1984) 
(recognizing that uncontradicted evidence of an unimpeached witness may not be arbitrarily 
disregarded). 
 
In contrast, the City offered no evidence to refute Sclafani’s claim that this specific 
incident caused his injury.  The City instead focused on the fact that Sclafani admitted that he did 
not immediately feel a pop or crack or any intense pain at the time the injury occurred.  At the 
same time, however, the City offered no evidence to establish that such symptoms would have 
suddenly manifested as a result of the injury suffered by Sclafani.  Moreover, evidence of the 
sudden onset of symptoms of an injury, or the lack thereof, is not entirely dispositive of whether 
an injury by accident occurred.  Admittedly, such evidence may be useful in identifying the 
specific incident that caused the injury, but nothing in our jurisprudence indicates that such 
evidence is required.  Thus, the City’s evidence is insufficient to rebut Sclafani’s testimony 
regarding when the injury occurred. 
C.  CUMULATIVE INJURY 
 
Finally, the City argues that the Court of Appeals and the Commission erred in failing to 
find that the Sclafani’s injury was a cumulative injury that resulted from repetitive trauma.  The 
 
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City points out that Sclafani acknowledged that his participation in the training required him to 
engage in the same three movements which eventually led to his injury.  We note, however, that 
the City’s argument on this issue relies heavily on its earlier argument that there was no 
identifiable incident sufficient to establish an injury by accident under the Act. 
 
We have recognized that a cumulative injury is an injury that is 
“not the result of some particular piece of work done or condition 
encountered on a definite occasion, but caused by the cumulative 
effect of many acts done or many exposures to conditions 
prevalent in the work, no one of which can be identified as the 
cause of the harm, is definitely excluded from compensation.” 
Aistrop v. Blue Diamond Coal Co., 181 Va. 287, 293 (1943) (quoting Francis H. Bohlen, A 
Problem in the Drafting of Workmen's Compensation Acts, 25 Harv.L.Rev. 328, 343 (1912)). 
 
One of the reasons we have required claimants to identify the specific incident that 
caused their injury is because “allowing compensation for injuries gradually received would 
impose upon the last employer the burden of pensioning every workman worn out or invalided 
by unhealthful exposure on the part of former employers.”  Id.  When the definition of 
cumulative injury is considered in conjunction with the reasoning for requiring the identification 
of the specific incident, it is clear that an injury caused by an identifiable incident is mutually 
exclusive of an injury caused by repetitive trauma.5  Thus, our determination that Sclafani 
sufficiently identified the specific incident that caused his injury essentially renders the City’s 
 
 
5 We recognize that the Court has previously indicated that injuries similar to those 
suffered by Sclafani are not compensable under the Act.  See Merillat Indus., Inc. v. Parks, 246 
Va. 429, 433 (1993).  The facts of the present case, however, differ significantly from Merillat 
Industries.  Notably, the claimant in Merillat Industries asserted that his injuries were caused by 
an occupational disease, not an injury by accident.  Id. at 430.  Furthermore, unlike the present 
case, the claimant made no attempt to identify any specific incident that caused his injury; rather, 
it was “uncontradicted that the injury was caused by repetitive trauma.”  Id. at 433.  Accordingly, 
Merillat Industries is inapposite to the present case. 
 
 
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argument on this issue moot.6  Accordingly, we will affirm the Court of Appeals’ decision on 
this issue. 
III.  CONCLUSION 
 
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse that portion of the judgment of the Court of 
Appeals applying the law of the case doctrine; however, upon review of the parties’ arguments 
on the issues discussed above, we further find that the evidence supports the Commission’s 
award of benefits to Sclafani.  Accordingly, we will affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals 
upholding that award. 
 
 
 
                                    Affirmed in part, 
 
 
 
 
                        reversed in part, 
and final judgment. 
 
 
6 It is further worth noting that there is no evidence in the record that indicates that 
Sclafani was injured as a result of these repeated actions.  The City relies on the fact that 
Sclafani’s role in the training required him to repeatedly perform the same discrete actions 
throughout the day.  Specifically, it points out that he was repeatedly placed on the ground, 
handcuffed and then picked up.  As noted above, however, Sclafani was injured when he was 
“picked up a little weird” during the final scenario.  In other words, his injury occurred as a result 
of an action that was different from the others, i.e., a non-repeated action.