Title: Southern Express v. Green

State: virginia

Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court

Document:

Present:  All the Justices 
SOUTHERN EXPRESS, ET AL. 
v.  Record No. 980453  OPINION BY JUSTICE CYNTHIA D. KINSER 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     January 8, 1999 
CLARA LOUISE GREEN 
 
FROM THE COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
 
In this appeal, we decide whether chilblains that the 
claimant suffered as a result of being exposed to cold 
temperature in a walk-in cooler during a four-hour period 
constitute an “injury by accident” under the Virginia Workers’ 
Compensation Act (the Act).  Because the claimant proved that 
she sustained the injury at a particular time and place and 
upon a particular occasion, that it was caused by an 
identifiable incident, and that it resulted in a structural 
change in her body, we will affirm the judgment of the Court 
of Appeals that the injury is compensable under the Act. 
I. 
Clara Louise Green was an employee at a Southern Express 
convenience store.  When Green arrived at work on June 22, 
1996, John Patrick Vaillant, the store manager, asked a co-
worker to take Green inside the store’s walk-in cooler.1  He 
instructed the co-worker to show Green what tasks needed to be 
                     
1  The cooler’s design included a series of glass doors on 
the front, shelving units behind the glass doors, and a walk-
in room behind the doors and shelves, which was also cold. 
completed in the cooler and how to perform those tasks.  Green 
had never before worked in the cooler.  The training session 
in the cooler lasted approximately 30 to 45 minutes. 
 
Later, Vaillant assigned Green to work in the cooler 
stocking “beer” and “cokes.”  When Green went back inside the 
cooler, she was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and an apron 
since she had not anticipated that she would be working in the 
cooler.  When Green asked Vaillant for a pair of gloves, he 
authorized Green to use a pair out of the store’s inventory.  
However, Green chose not to do so. 
 
Green testified that, in addition to the time spent in 
the cooler during the training session, she worked in the 
cooler stocking drinks from 2:00 o’clock a.m. until 6:00 
o’clock a.m. without taking a single break.  She further 
stated that, at some point during this period of time, she 
tried to leave the cooler but was unable to open the door.  
She attempted to get someone’s attention by knocking on the 
window of the cooler, but no one responded. 
 
Vaillant’s testimony conflicted with Green’s on this last 
point.  He was present at the Southern Express store during 
Green’s shift of work on the morning in question and recalled 
Green coming out of the cooler to take at least one break and 
possibly more.  He further testified that the cooler door had 
 
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no locking device and that it could be opened from both inside 
and outside at all times. 
Green stated that, after finishing her work in the 
cooler, she was “cold and shivering” with her hands being “all 
balled up.”  She testified that her face also had sores on it.  
Vaillant, however, testified that Green did not mention any 
injury to him when she left work at the end of her shift 
around 6:00 a.m.  Green did not return to work at the Southern 
Express store after she left that morning.2
 
The record reflects that Green received treatment from 
several doctors for her injury.  On the morning of June 23, 
1996, Green saw Dr. Gary McGowan at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital 
for “an evaluation of pain in her hands, left forearm and left 
elbow” in connection with an injury sustained while “lift[ing] 
beer cases in the cold freezer for about 3-4 hours.”  Dr. 
McGowan diagnosed a left hand/forearm strain and advised Green 
to wear gloves if she were exposed to cold temperatures at 
work again.  Two days later, Dr. Lerla Joseph of the Charles 
                     
2  The record contains conflicting evidence regarding 
Green’s period of employment at the Southern Express store.  
Green claims that she began working there in late May 1996 and 
worked until June 9, 1996.  Vaillant, however, testified that 
Green’s period of employment ran from June 17 through 22, 
1996.  In her claim for workers’ compensation benefits, Green 
originally listed her date of injury as June 22, 1996, but 
later changed it to June 9, 1996. 
 
 
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City Medical Group, Inc., examined Green and recommended that 
Green limit her lifting, bending, or cold storage work. 
 
On July 1, 1996, Dr. Marc Jay Pinsky treated Green.  At 
that time, Green complained of “pain, burning, and stiffness 
in [her] hands and feet” as a result of having worked several 
hours in a cooler without “proper protection or a break for 
warm-up.”  Dr. Pinsky diagnosed “chilbains [sic] [secondary] 
to longterm exposure to cold temperature.”3  He advised Green 
to avoid further exposure to the cold. 
 
Next, on July 9, 1996, Green saw Dr. E.M. Hudgins of the 
Dermatology Associates of Virginia, P.C.  In a letter to Dr. 
Pinsky, Dr. Hudgins opined that Green “has had a mold cold 
injury consistent with chilblains.” 
 
Green filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits on 
July 10, 1996.  A deputy commissioner of the Virginia Workers’ 
Compensation Commission (Commission) denied Green’s claim on 
the basis that “there was no sudden precipitating event, no 
accident which arose out of and in the course of employment.”  
Instead, the deputy commissioner found that her injury 
                     
3  Chilblains are “[a] form of cold injury characterized 
by localized erythema and sometimes blistering.  The affected 
area itches, may be painful, and may progress to crusted 
ulcerations.  The cause is thought to be prolonged 
constriction of arterioles in reaction to exposure to cold and 
dampness.”  Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary 367 (17th ed. 
1993). 
   
 
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resulted from “continuous exposure over a period of time.”  
Upon Green’s request for review, the Commission reversed the 
deputy commissioner’s decision and awarded benefits to Green.  
Southern Express then appealed the Commission’s decision to 
the Court of Appeals of Virginia.  A panel of the Court of 
Appeals affirmed the award of benefits on the basis that “a 
condition resulting from exposure to extreme temperatures may 
still constitute an ‘injury by accident.’”  Southern Express 
v. Green, 26 Va. App. 439, 445, 495 S.E.2d 500, 503 (1998).  
We awarded Southern Express this appeal. 
II. 
When Green filed her claim for workers’ compensation 
benefits, she alleged an “injury by accident” under Code 
§ 65.2-101.  This section states that “‘[i]njury’ means only 
injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the 
employment . . . .”4  The Act does not, however, specifically 
define the term “injury by accident.”  Consequently, the 
phrase has been the subject of judicial interpretation.  See 
Virginia Elec. & Power Co. v. Cogbill, 223 Va. 354, 288 S.E.2d 
485 (1982), and Badische Corp. v. Starks, 221 Va. 910, 275 
                     
4  In the definition of “injury,” Code § 65.2-101 also 
includes “occupational disease as defined in Chapter 4 
(§ 65.2-400 et seq.).”  Green does not, however, contend that 
her chilblains constitute an occupational disease under the 
Act. 
 
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S.E.2d 605 (1981), for a survey of cases discussing the 
“injury by accident” requirement. 
“It is apparent from the language employed by the 
drafters of the Act that it was originally intended to provide 
coverage for the most frequently recurring kinds of industrial 
accidents, e.g., injuries immediately resulting from hazards 
of the workplace such as blows from falling objects . . . [or] 
falls from ladders . . . .”  Morris v. Morris, 238 Va. 578, 
585, 385 S.E.2d 858, 862 (1989).  The more difficult issue 
through the years has been “whether an injury resulting from 
repetitive trauma, continuing mental or physical stress, or 
other cumulative events, amounts to an ‘injury by accident’ 
within the meaning of [the Act] . . . .”  Id. at 581, 385 
S.E.2d at 859-60. 
In Morris, a case relied upon by Southern Express, the 
Court addressed this issue and reiterated the parameters of an 
“injury by accident.”  We considered the claims of three 
separate workers, two of whom had sustained myocardial 
infarctions and a third worker who had a ruptured cervical 
disc.  One of the workers who had a myocardial infarction had 
been lifting cartons of fiberglass, weighing approximately 50 
pounds each, for about 45 minutes.  The second employee with 
the same type of injury had been installing ceiling panels 
weighing 30 to 35 pounds each over a period of approximately 
 
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two and one-half hours.  The worker with the ruptured disc 
injury had been unloading steel doors for approximately an 
hour and a half.  His injury was not diagnosed until several 
weeks later, but the two employees with myocardial infarctions 
were each taken to hospitals for treatment on the day of the 
injury. 
 
We vacated all three awards of compensation on the basis 
that the claimants had not carried the burden of establishing 
an “injury by accident.”  Although each respective injury 
“made its appearance suddenly ‘at a particular time and upon a 
particular occasion,’” we concluded that each claimant had 
failed to 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, 385 S.E.2d at 
864-65 (quoting The Lane Co., Inc. v. Saunders, 229 Va. 196, 
199, 326 S.E.2d 702, 703 (1985) (emphasis added)).  We 
specifically held “that injuries resulting from repetitive 
trauma, continuing mental or physical stress, or other 
cumulative events, as well as injuries sustained at an unknown 
time, are not ‘injuries by accident.’”  Morris, 238 Va. at 
589, 385 S.E.2d at 865. 
 
In our analysis of the term “injury by accident” in 
Morris, we relied upon language from a law review article that 
 
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we had previously quoted with approval in Aistrop v. Blue 
Diamond Coal Co., Inc., 181 Va. 287, 293, 24 S.E.2d 546, 548 
(1943) (citations omitted): 
‘The injury, to be regarded as “by accident,” must be 
received *** at a particular time and in a particular 
place and by a particular accident.  And the accident 
must be something the date of which can be fixed.  It is 
not enough that the injury shall make its appearance 
suddenly at a particular time and upon a particular 
occasion.’  In other words, the ‘incident,’ the act done 
or condition encountered, ‘must be shown to have occurred 
at some reasonably definite time’. 
On the other hand, as the author says, ‘*** injury 
of gradual growth, *** 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.’ 
 
(quoting Francis H. Bohlen, A Problem in the Drafting of 
Workmen’s Compensation Acts, 25 Harv. L. Rev. 328, 342-43 
(1912)). 
 
Thus, Morris and Aistrop teach that, to establish an 
“injury by accident,” a claimant must prove (1) that the 
injury appeared suddenly at a particular time and place and 
upon a particular occasion, (2) that it was caused by an 
identifiable incident or sudden precipitating event, and (3) 
that it resulted in an obvious mechanical or structural change 
in the human body.  Accord Cogbill, 223 Va. 354, 288 S.E.2d 
485; Starks, 221 Va. 910, 275 S.E.2d 605.  Measuring these 
elements of proof against the facts as recited in Morris, it 
 
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is evident that those claimants failed to prove that an 
identifiable incident or event at work caused their injuries.  
The claimants asserted that the cause of their respective 
injuries was the particular piece of work that they were 
performing on the days when the injuries first manifested 
themselves, but evidence of causation, especially medical 
evidence, was noticeably absent. 
 
The question of causation was also the critical issue in 
Byrd v. Stonega Coke & Coal Co., 182 Va. 212, 28 S.E.2d 725 
(1944), a case relied upon by the Court of Appeals.  Contrary 
to Southern Express’s assertion that the Court of Appeals used 
the decision in Byrd to carve out an exception to the 
principles enunciated in Morris for all exposure cases, we 
find no such deviation from Morris.  Nor do we perceive any 
tension between those two decisions as asserted by Southern 
Express. 
 
In Byrd, the employee collapsed suddenly and died after 
having pulled coke out of a hot oven for more than ten hours.  
The employer conceded that the employee was exposed to heat of 
a much higher degree than that to which he otherwise would 
have been exposed, but denied that there was a causal 
connection between the hazards of the job and the employee’s 
death.  The record contained medical evidence from five 
doctors, which we summarized by stating that all the doctors 
 
9
agreed that acute heart failure was the immediate cause of the 
employee’s death and that exposure to abnormal heat may affect 
the heart.  However, we acknowledged that the employee had 
only some of the usual symptoms of heat stroke and that two of 
the doctors did not state whether the excessive heat 
contributed to the employee’s death.  We concluded that the 
employee’s death “was the result of the conditions under which 
[he] was required to perform the duties of his employment.”  
Byrd, 182 Va. at 221, 28 S.E.2d at 729.  We also stated that 
“if . . . injury or death results from, or is hastened by, 
conditions of employment exposing the employee to hazards to a 
degree beyond that of the public at large, the injury or death 
is construed to be accidental within the meaning of the 
[Act].”  Id. at 216, 28 S.E.2d at 727. 
The Court in Byrd did not discuss whether injuries caused 
by repetitive trauma, continuing mental or physical stress, or 
other such cumulative occurrences satisfy the “injury by 
accident” requirement.  Such an inquiry was not the focus of 
the parties or the Court for obvious reasons.  The employee’s 
death occurred at a particular time and place and resulted in 
an obvious change in his body.  Moreover, the fact that the 
identifiable event, the exposure to extreme heat, was not 
disputed is especially significant for the present case.  The 
only contested issue was whether the exposure to the heat 
 
10
caused the employee’s collapse and death.  Although the Court 
in Byrd did not specifically identify the elements of proof 
later enunciated in Morris, the evidence, nevertheless, 
satisfied those elements.5
Turning now to the facts of the present case and using 
the elements of proof outlined in Morris, we find that Green 
established an “injury by accident.”  Green’s chilblains first 
appeared during the time that she spent in the cooler, thus at 
a particular time and place and upon a particular occasion, 
and resulted in a structural change in her body.  She 
testified that her face had sores on it and her hands were 
“all balled up” after she finished her work in the cooler.  In 
fact, she sought medical treatment on the morning of June 23, 
1996.  At least two of the doctors who treated Green diagnosed 
chilblains resulting from Green’s exposure to cold 
temperature.  Southern Express does not contest that Green 
suffered chilblains and that the cause of the chilblains was 
Green’s exposure to cold temperature during her work in the 
cooler. 
The only remaining question, the one that Southern 
Express does challenge, is whether exposure to cold 
temperature in a cooler for approximately four hours during a 
                     
5  Notably, the Court in Byrd had the benefit of the 
decision in Aistrop, which discussed the same principles as 
 
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shift of work constitutes an identifiable event or incident.  
Citing Morris, Southern Express argues that such a four-hour 
exposure to the cold is not an event “bounded by rigid 
temporal precision.”  238 Va. at 589, 385 S.E.2d at 864.  
Rather, Southern Express asserts that Green’s injury resulted 
from repetitive trauma, continuing physical stress, or a 
cumulative event.  We do not agree. 
The evidence in this case shows that Green’s chilblains 
were not an “injury of gradual growth . . . 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 . . . .”  Aistrop, 181 Va. 
at 293, 24 S.E.2d at 548.  (Emphasis added).  Instead, the 
chilblains were “the result of some particular piece of work 
done or condition encountered on a definite occasion . . . .”  
Id.  In other words, Green’s chilblains resulted from a single 
exposure to cold temperature on a definite occasion during the 
performance of a specific piece of work, i.e., an 
“identifiable incident.”  Morris, 238 Va. at 589, 385 S.E.2d 
at 865.  It was not caused by repeated exposures over a period 
of months or years. 
For these reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the 
Court of Appeals. 
_____________________ 
those set forth in Morris. 
 
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Affirmed. 
 
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