Title: Augusta County Sheriff's Dept. v. Overbey

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  Carrico, C.J., Compton, Lacy, Hassell, and Kinser, JJ., 
and Stephenson and Whiting, Senior Justices 
 
AUGUSTA COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT, ET AL. 
                                          OPINION BY 
v. Record No. 962561 
SENIOR JUSTICE HENRY H. WHITING 
                                         October 31, 1997 
PATRICK L. OVERBEY 
 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
  
In an employer's appeal of a workers' compensation claim, we 
consider a provision in Code § 65.2-402(B) which creates a 
presumption that a deputy sheriff's heart disease was an 
occupational disease suffered in the line of duty "unless such 
presumption is overcome by a preponderance of competent evidence 
to the contrary."
1
 
While on duty and talking to another deputy sheriff, Deputy 
Sheriff Patrick Lindy Overbey sustained sharp chest pains for a 
period of 9 or 10 minutes on the morning of January 31, 1995.  
Later that day, acting as a deputy sheriff-security guard at a 
local high school basketball game, Overbey again suffered chest 
pains which his attending physician, Dr. David B. Chernoff, 
diagnosed as a myocardial infarction or "heart attack." 
 
Following a period of hospitalization and recovery, Overbey 
filed a claim for workers' compensation against his employer, the 
                     
     
1Code § 65.2-402(B) provides in pertinent part: 
 
  
Hypertension or heart disease causing . . . any health 
condition or impairment resulting in total or partial 
disability of . . . [certain law enforcement officers 
including] deputy sheriffs . . . shall be presumed to be 
occupational diseases, suffered in the line of duty, that 
are covered by this title unless such presumption is 
overcome by a preponderance of competent evidence to the 
contrary. 
 
 
 
 
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Augusta County Sheriff's Department, and its insurer, the 
Virginia Municipal Group Self-Insurance Association 
(collectively, the employer).  Asserting that Overbey's 
disability was not the result of an occupational disease suffered 
in the line of his duties as a deputy sheriff, the employer 
denied liability.   
 
After a hearing, a deputy commissioner of the Workers' 
Compensation Commission dismissed the claim on the ground that 
the evidence was sufficient to overcome the Code § 65.2-402(B) 
presumption that Overbey's heart disease was a result of work-
related causes.  On Overbey's appeal, the Workers' Compensation 
Commission disagreed with the deputy commissioner and awarded 
benefits.  On the employer's appeal, the Court of Appeals 
affirmed the Commission's decision.  Concluding that this case 
involves matters of significant precedential value, we awarded an 
appeal to the employer.  Code § 17-116.07(B). 
 
Prior to the hearing before the deputy commissioner, the 
employer took the deposition of Dr. Chernoff.  According to Dr. 
Chernoff, although there was no "single etiologic cause" for 
Overbey's heart attack, there were several "risk factors" which 
he thought caused the attack.  Dr. Chernoff listed the following 
risk factors:  (1) a history of heavy smoking (according to 
Overbey, he had smoked from two to two-and-a-half packs of 
cigarettes each day from age 19 until he had his heart attack at 
the age of 41); (2) elevated cholesterol; (3) a family history of 
 
 
 
 
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heart trouble (Overbey's father had a heart attack while "in his 
50's"); and (4) non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus coupled 
with a strong family history of diabetes.   
 
Although Dr. Chernoff did not ask Overbey about his specific 
job duties, Dr. Chernoff had previously treated "a few" law 
enforcement officers in the Staunton area and "a number of 
Security Police" while he was a physician in the United States 
Air Force.  Dr. Chernoff testified that, in his opinion, 
Overbey's employment was not a risk factor or a cause of his 
heart disease.  However, on cross-examination, Dr. Chernoff 
indicated that it was "possible" that "stress" may have 
contributed to cause Overbey's heart attack. 
 
Overbey testified about the stressful incidents in his job. 
 In his regular duties as a civil process server, he had many 
papers to serve in a limited time, occasionally upon people who 
were uncooperative.  Overbey also testified that while serving 
papers, he encountered dogs "two or three times a week."  He 
responded to domestic violence calls "[a]bout once a week," house 
or bank burglar alarms on an "average of two or three a week," 
and "on occasions," he "worked accidents."  When he could "feel" 
his heart racing while driving a car at work, he would "just pull 
off the side of the road and just wind down." 
 
Approximately three weeks before Overbey's heart attack, his 
wife was suspended from her job, and a few days later she was 
charged with embezzlement and forgery.  About a week before his 
 
 
 
 
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heart attack, Overbey and his wife separated.  Overbey testified 
that his state of mind was "easier" after the separation.  
However, when Dr. Chernoff was treating Overbey's heart disease, 
Overbey's description of his wife's legal problems caused Dr. 
Chernoff to describe them as the "main stressor."  No physician 
contradicted Dr. Chernoff's testimony listing the non-job-related 
risk factors which he thought contributed to cause Overbey's 
heart disease. 
 
To recover compensation for heart disease, a workers' 
compensation claimant must ordinarily establish, among other 
things, that the illness is an "occupational disease . . . by 
clear and convincing evidence, to a reasonable medical certainty, 
[and] that it arose out of and in the course of employment."  
Code § 65.2-401.
2  However, in the case of certain law 
enforcement officials, including deputy sheriffs, Code § 65.2-
402(B) creates a presumption that their heart diseases are 
occupationally related, "unless such presumption is overcome by a 
preponderance of competent evidence to the contrary." 
 
The employer concedes that the presumption in Code § 65.2-
402(B) requires it to establish a non-work-related cause for 
Overbey's heart condition and that job stress was not the cause. 
 
     
2In 1997, Code § 65.2-401 was amended to delete "to a 
reasonable medical certainty," and to add "(not a mere 
probability)." 
 
 
 
 
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 Overbey contends that this presumption also imposes the burden 
upon the employer of producing a preponderance of evidence 
excluding the possibility that his heart disease was work 
related.  The employer responds that Overbey's contention adds an 
additional burden upon it that is neither stated nor implied in 
the statute. 
 
We agree with the employer.  In Page v. City of Richmond, 
218 Va. 844, 847-48, 241 S.E.2d 775, 777 (1978), this Court noted 
that in rebutting the presumption that heart disease is work 
related, the employer must adduce competent medical evidence of a 
non-work-related cause. 
 
Overbey suggests that in County of Amherst v. Brockman, 224 
Va. 391, 399, 297 S.E.2d 805, 810 (1982), we established an 
obligation that the employer "exclude" the "possibility" of job-
related causes.  We disagree.  In Brockman, our statement about 
the employer's failure to "exclude stress as a possible 
'contributing cause'" was made in the context of our affirmance 
of the Commission's award of compensation based upon conflicting 
medical evidence.  In Brockman, not only had the employer failed 
to exclude job-related stress as a cause, but its medical 
evidence of a non-job-related cause of heart attacks was 
contradicted by other medical evidence "adopted" by the deputy 
commissioner and the full Workers' Compensation Commission on 
review.  Id., 297 S.E.2d at 809.  Here, there was no medical 
evidence other than that presented by the employer. 
 
 
 
 
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Our decisions subsequent to Brockman have applied the basic 
standard noted in Page with no suggestion that the employer's 
proof must exclude the possibility of all job-related causation 
hypotheses.  Thus, in Doss v. Fairfax County Fire & Rescue 
Department, 229 Va. 440, 442, 331 S.E.2d 795, 796 (1985), the 
Court simply applied the conclusion stated in Page that in order 
to overcome the statutory presumption, the employer merely "must 
adduce competent medical evidence of a non-work-related cause of 
the disabling disease."  That burden has been met upon submission 
of competent medical evidence that the claimant's condition was 
more than likely a hereditary phenomenon, id., or a showing that 
the claimant's heart condition was "generally thought to be 
congenital" or was "probably" congenital.  Cook v. City of 
Waynesboro Police Department, 225 Va. 23, 28-30, 300 S.E.2d 746, 
748-49 (1983).  Thus, nothing in the statute or the several 
decisions of this Court dealing with rebuttal of this presumption 
suggests that the employer has the burden of excluding the 
"possibility" that job stress may have been a contributing factor 
to heart disease. 
 
Because we conclude that the employer introduced sufficient 
evidence to rebut the presumption, Overbey had the burden of 
"establishing by clear and convincing evidence, to a reasonable 
medical certainty," that his heart disease arose out of and in 
the course of his employment.  See Code § 65.2-401.  As noted, no 
medical expert contradicted Dr. Chernoff's opinion.  Hence, 
 
 
 
 
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Overbey's description of his work stresses was, as a matter of 
law, insufficient to establish "to a reasonable medical 
certainty" that his heart disease arose out of his employment.  
For these reasons, we reject Overbey's contention that his claim 
for compensation was properly awarded under the "two causes 
rule."  That rule applies when the evidence shows that an 
employee's "'disability has two causes:  one related to the 
employment and one unrelated.'"  Smith v. Fieldcrest Mills, Inc., 
224 Va. 24, 28, 294 S.E.2d 805, 808 (1982) (quoting Bergmann v. L 
& W Drywall, 222 Va. 30, 32, 278 S.E.2d 801, 803 (1981)).  Here, 
as we have said, the employer has met the burden of overcoming 
the statutory presumption and Overbey has not shown that his 
heart disease arose out of his employment.  Thus, he has not 
shown that there was a cause "related to the employment," an 
essential component of the "two causes rule." 
 
 Accordingly, we will reverse the judgment of the Court of 
Appeals and dismiss the claimant's application for benefits. 
 
Reversed and dismissed.