Case Name: CLIFTON D. CAULDER, Employee-Plaintiff v. WAVERLY MILLS, Employer-Defendant, and EMPLOYERS MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Carrier-Defendants
Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
Jurisdiction: North Carolina
Decision Date: 1985-07-03
Citations: 314 N.C. 70
Docket Number: No. 258PA84
Parties: CLIFTON D. CAULDER, Employee-Plaintiff v. WAVERLY MILLS, Employer-Defendant, and EMPLOYERS MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Carrier-Defendants
Judges: Chief Justice BRANCH joins in this dissent.
Reporter: North Carolina Reports
Volume: 314
Pages: 70–80

Head Matter:
CLIFTON D. CAULDER, Employee-Plaintiff v. WAVERLY MILLS, Employer-Defendant, and EMPLOYERS MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Carrier-Defendants
No. 258PA84
(Filed 3 July 1985)
1. Master and Servant § 68— hazard of occupational disease — nature of substance —concentration in workplace
For a substance to be a “hazard” of an occupational disease within the meaning of G.S. 97-57, it must be a substance peculiar to the workplace; that is, the substance is one to which the worker has a greater exposure on the job than does the public generally, either because of the nature of the substance itself or because the concentrations of the substance in the workplace are greater than concentrations to which the public generally is exposed. G.S. 97-29, G.S. 97-30.
2. Master and Servant § 68— last injurious exposure — substance which aggravates but does not cause occupational disease
The evidence was sufficient to permit the Industrial Commission to find that plaintiffs last injurious exposure to the hazards of his lung disease occurred while employed by Waverly Mills even though he was exposed only to synthetic fibers during that period, and the Commission’s finding that dust from synthetic fibers is not known to cause chronic obstructive lung disease did not preclude a conclusion that exposure to it constituted a last injurious exposure to the hazards of the disease. All the evidence in the record shows that plaintiffs incapacity for work occurred only after he had worked for thirteen years for Waverly Mills in very dusty conditions; plaintiff had no incapacity for work when he began and was totally incapacitated when he quit; and there was medical testimony that the dusty conditions at Waverly Mills, including dust from synthetic fibers, could cause the worsening of plaintiffs lung disease.
Justice Meyer dissenting.
Chief Justice Branch joins in the dissent.
On defendants Waverly Mills and Employers Mutual Insurance Company’s petition for further review of a decision of the North Carolina Court of Appeals, 67 N-C. App. 739, 314 S.E. 2d 4 (1984), affirming an Industrial Commission’s award against them.
Charles R. Hassell, Jr. for plaintiff appellee.
Hedrick, Eatman, Gardner, Feerick & Kincheloe by J. A. Gardner, III for defendant appellants.

Opinion:
EXUM, Justice.
The employee-plaintiff, Clifton Caulder, was a textile worker his entire working life, the last thirteen years of which he was employed by defendant Waverly Mills. His claim is for workers' compensation for incapacity to work caused by chronic obstructive lung disease. Concluding that Caulder's lung disease was occupational and compensable and that he was last injuriously exposed to the hazards of the disease while working for Waverly Mills and while Employers Mutual Insurance Company was on the risk, the Industrial Commission awarded Caulder compensation for total disability against defendants. The Court of Appeals affirmed and we allowed defendants' petition for further review of its decision.
Defendants do not challenge the Commission's findings or conclusions that Caulder suffers from chronic obstructive lung disease, the disease is occupational under N.C.G.S. § 97-53(13), and the disease has resulted in Caulder's total incapacity to work. Defendants challenge only those aspects of the Commission's award leading to its determination that Caulder was last injuriously exposed to the hazards of his disease while employed by Waverly Mills and that Employers Mutual was the carrier on the risk when Caulder was so last exposed. Defendants contend that the Commission's findings leading to such determinations are not supported by the evidence and that the findings themselves preclude as a matter of law these challenged determinations.
The evidence and the Commission's findings are, in essence, that although Caulder was exposed to cotton dust when he worked for employers other than Waverly Mills from 1945 until 1967, he was exposed to almost no cotton dust during his employment with Waverly Mills from 1967 until 1980. Almost all of his exposure to dust during his employment with Waverly Mills was to the dust from synthetic fibers. Caulder was exposed exclusively to dust from synthetic fibers during the period when Employers Mutual was the compensation carrier on the risk from 1 July 1979 through February 1980. Inhalation of dust from synthetic fibers is not known to cause chronic obstructive lung disease.
Caulder's evidence is that although dust from synthetic fibers is not known to cause chronic obstructive lung disease, it can make such a disease already in progress worse and, in Caulder's case, did make it worse. The narrow legal question before us, therefore, is whether exposure to a substance which is not known to cause an occupational disease may nevertheless be a last injurious exposure to the hazards of such disease under N.C.G.S. § 97-57 if it makes the disease, already in progress, worse. The statute provides:
Employer liable. — In any case where compensation is payable for an occupational disease, the employer in whose employment the employee was last injuriously exposed to the hazards of such disease, and the insurance carrier, if any, which was on the risk when the employee was so last exposed under such employer, shall be liable.
Two of our cases, Rutledge v. Tultex Corp., 308 N.C. 85, 301 S.E. 2d 359 (1983), and Haynes v. Feldspar Producing Co., 222 N.C. 163, 22 S.E. 2d 275 (1942), make it clear that exposures to substances which can cause an occupational disease can be a last injurious exposure to the hazards of such disease under N.C.G.S. § 97-57 even if the exposure in question is so slight quantitatively that it could not in itself have produced the disease.
Haynes was a silicosis case in which the employee-plaintiff had worked in North Carolina feldspar mines for twenty-eight years. From 1927 to 1940 he worked for Tennessee Mineral Corporation where the "silica dust" in the mine "was pretty bad, and plaintiff was exposed to it constantly." 222 N.C. at 164, 22 S.E. 2d at 275. Plaintiff began working for defendant Feldspar Producing Company on 24 September 1940 until he quit on 24 January 1941 after having been diagnosed as having silicosis. Plaintiff testified he had had symptoms of the disease while he worked for Tennessee Mineral Corporation. Indeed, plaintiffs physician testified that in November 1937 plaintiff "had early silicosis, commonly referred to as silicosis one, without symptoms." 222 N.C. at 167, 22 S.E. 2d at 277. By November 1940 plaintiff had "moderately advanced silicosis with probable infection." Id. After it was explained to him that the expression "last injuriously exposed" as used in the statute "meant an exposure which proximately augmented the disease to any extent, however slight," plaintiffs physician testified in response to a hypothetical question: "You haven't left me much leeway. I have an opinion that it did constitute an injurious exposure." Id. The physician said he had examined plaintiff on 25 October 1938 "and found that he had silicosis one. On November 28, 1940, I examined him and found that he had moderately advanced silicosis with probable infection." Id. Plaintiffs physician also testified that he couldn't say whether plaintiffs silicosis had advanced at all after he had entered defendant's employment and that he couldn't say "that he is a bit worse off, not even 1% worse off, than he was on September 24, 1940. I can't say that he is 1% worse off or 1% better off." 222 N.C. at 168, 22 S.E. 2d at 277.
The Commission, after finding that plaintiff was last injuriously exposed at Feldspar Producing Company, made a compensation award against that company. This Court affirmed against defendants' contention that there was no evidence to support the award. The Court said, in essence, that when the evidence was considered in the light most favorable to plaintiff, both the affirmative answer of the physician to the hypothetical question and the physician's testimony on direct examination that plaintiffs disease had "advanced" from the time the physician examined him on 24 October 1938 until he next examined him on 28 November 1940 after he went to work for Feldspar was enough to support the award against Feldspar. The Court said:
Perhaps on a comparative basis, the chief responsibility for plaintiffs condition morally rests upon his Tennessee employers; but not the legal liability. It must have been fully understood by those who wrote the law fixing the responsibility on the employer in whose service the last injurious exposure took place, that situations like this must inevitably arise, but the law makes no provision for a partnership in responsibility, has nothing to say as to the length of the later employment or the degree of injury which the deleterious exposure must inflict to merit compensation. It takes the breakdown practically where it occurs — with the last injurious exposure.
222 N.C. at 170, 22 S.E. 2d at 279 (emphasis supplied).
In Rutledge v. Tultex Corp., 308 N.C. at 89, 301 S.E. 2d at 362-63 (1983), we said:
Under this statute, consequently, it is not necessary that claimant show that the conditions of her employment with defendant caused or significantly contributed to her occupational disease. She need only show: (1) that she has a compensable occupational disease and (2) that she was 'last injuriously exposed to the hazards of such disease' in defendant's employment. The statutory terms 'last injuriously exposed' mean 'an exposure which proximately augmented the disease to any extent, however slight.' Haynes v. Feldspar Producing Company, 222 N.C. 163, 166, 169, 22 S.E. 2d 275, 277, 278 (1942).
By the phrase "hazards of the disease," as used in N.C.G.S. § 97-57, we are satisfied that the legislature intended to include more than substances which are capable in themselves of producing an occupational disease. The term "hazard" should be given its common and ordinary meaning, since nothing indicates the legislature intended it to have some other meaning and it has not acquired some technical meaning. "[W]here the words of a statute have not acquired a technical meaning, they must be construed in accordance with their common and ordinary meaning unless a different meaning is apparent or indicated by the context." Pelham Realty Corp. v. Board of Transportation of North Carolina, 303 N.C. 424, 434, 279 S.E. 2d 826, 832 (1981); accord State v. Koberlein, 309 N.C. 601, 605, 308 S.E. 2d 442, 445 (1983). "Hazard" is defined by Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1041 (1976) as "a thing or condition that might operate against success or safety: a possible source of peril, danger, duress, or difficulty . a condition that tends to create or increase the possibility of loss."
An occupational disease does not become compensable under N.C.G.S. § 97-29 (total incapacity) or 97-30 (partial incapacity) until it causes incapacity for work. This incapacity is the basic "loss" for which the worker receives compensation under those statutes. A condition peculiar to the workplace which accelerates the progress of an occupational disease to such an extent that the disease finally causes the worker's incapacity to work constitutes a source of danger and difficulty to that worker and increases the possibility of that worker's ultimate loss. It constitutes, therefore, a hazard of the disease as the term "hazard" is commonly used.
We emphasize that in order for a substance to be a "hazard" of an occupational disease within the meaning of section 97-57, it must be, as we have indicated, a substance peculiar to the workplace. By this we mean that the substance is one to which the worker has a greater exposure on the job than does the public generally, either because of the nature of the substance itself or because the concentrations of the substance in the workplace are greater than concentrations to which the public generally is exposed.
Clearly, dust arising from the processing of synthetic fibers in textile plants, with which we here are concerned, is a substance to which, because of its nature, workers in those plants have a greater exposure than does the public generally. It is, therefore, a substance peculiar to the workplace.
The legislature, recognizing that occupational diseases often develop slowly over long periods of time after exposures to offending substances at successive places of employment, determined by enacting section 97-57 to take "the breakdown practically where it occurs —with the last injurious exposure." Haynes v. Feldspar Producing Co., 222 N.C. at 170, 22 S.E. 2d at 279.
All evidence in this record shows that Caulder's "breakdown," ie., his incapacity for work, occurred only after he had worked for some thirteen years for Waverly Mills in very dusty conditions. Caulder had no incapacity for work when he began work at Waverly; he was totally incapacitated for work when he quit. Dr. Kunstling testified that the dusty conditions at Waverly Mills' plants, including dust from synthetic fibers, could cause the worsening of Caulder's lung disease. He said a person "who has a preexisting lung condition who is put in a very dusty environment of whatever type may have problems as a result of that environment." He testified that "if an individual who has preexisting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease works in an environment that is very dusty for two years to the extent that it aggravates his symptoms if he remains in that environment . I believe that it probably would contribute . or exacerbate his condition to at least a slight degree." With regard to Caulder specifically, Dr. Kunstling testified, "I would feel that Mr. Caulder's work environment during this recent period of time [with defendant] had been somewhat harmful to him primarily based on his history that he did find it an irritating énvironment, and I think that the actual composition of the environment is probably not so important. In fact, it possibly could have been harmful to him had there been no cotton at all in the environment . Mr. Caulder said he stopped working in February of 1980 because of respiratory symptoms, and I feel that whatever the work environment was at that time, it was contributing to his pulmonary symptoms."
This is enough evidence to permit the Commission to find, as it did, that Caulder's exposures to dust at Waverly Mills' plants, including the last plant at which he worked, "contributed to his pulmonary symptoms and was harmful to him" and that Caulder's last injurious exposure to the hazards of his lung disease occurred while employed by Waverly Mills and while Employers Mutual Insurance Company was on the risk. Neither does the Commission's finding that dust from synthetic fibers is not known to cause chronic obstructive lung disease preclude a conclusion that exposure to it constituted a last injurious exposure to the hazards of the disease.
For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.