Title: Adams v. Alliant Techsystems
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: 002613
State: Virginia
Issuer: Virginia Supreme Court
Date: April 20, 2001

Present:  Carrico, C.J., Lacy, Hassell, Keenan, Koontz, and 
Lemons, JJ., and Whiting, S.J. 
 
HARRY ADAMS, ET AL. 
 
v.  Record No. 002613 
 OPINION BY JUSTICE DONALD W. LEMONS 
 
 
 
April 20, 2001 
ALLIANT TECHSYSTEMS, INC., ET AL. 
 
UPON QUESTIONS OF LAW CERTIFIED BY THE UNITED STATES 
 DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA 
 
 
On October 27, 2000, the United States District Court for 
the Western District of Virginia entered an order of 
certification requesting that we exercise our certification 
jurisdiction, Va. Const. art. VI, § 1; Rule 5:42, and answer 
the following questions: 
1. 
Does the Virginia Workers’ Compensation 
Act bar a plaintiff from bringing a common-law 
cause of action to recover damages for his or 
her hearing loss resulting from cumulative 
trauma if the claim accrued during the period 
in which such hearing loss was not a 
compensable injury or disease under the Act? 
 
2. 
If an alleged impairment is not 
compensable under and not barred by the 
Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act, must the 
plaintiff still file a claim with the Workers’ 
Compensation Commission before filing a common-
law cause of action? 
 
 
We accepted the certified questions by order entered on 
December 14, 2000.  For the reasons stated below, we answer 
both certified questions in the negative. 
I. Facts 
 
Three hundred and forty-two (342) plaintiffs either are 
working or have worked at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant 
(“Arsenal”) in Radford, Virginia, and seek damages for hearing 
loss allegedly caused by exposure to unsafe, hazardous, and 
excessive noise levels while working at the Arsenal.  
Hercules, Inc. (“Hercules”) operated the Arsenal until about 
February 1995, when operations were undertaken by Alliant 
Techsystems, Inc. (“Alliant”).1  Plaintiffs filed a complaint 
in the United States District Court for the Western District 
of Virginia, alleging that defendants negligently conducted 
manufacturing operations during their respective tenures of 
operating the Arsenal, causing each plaintiff to suffer either 
partial or total hearing loss. 
 
Defendants moved to dismiss plaintiffs’ complaint 
pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil 
Procedure.  They maintain that the exclusivity provision of 
the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act, Code § 65.2-100 et 
seq. (“Act”), bars the plaintiffs’ common law personal injury 
claims and that, even if plaintiffs’ claims are not barred, 
plaintiffs must, nonetheless, file a claim with the Workers’ 
Compensation Commission (“Commission”) and have compensability 
                     
1 Hereafter, Alliant and Hercules will be referred to 
collectively as “defendants.” 
 
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determined by the Commission before filing a common law cause 
of action. 
II. Analysis 
 
On March 1, 1996, this Court decided The Stenrich Group 
v. Jemmott, 251 Va. 186, 467 S.E.2d 795 (1996).  Three cases 
involving claimants seeking compensation for disease caused by 
repetitive motion or trauma under the Act were consolidated 
for consideration under Jemmott.  Two cases involved carpal 
tunnel syndrome and one case involved “trigger thumb.”  We 
held that “job-related impairments resulting from cumulative 
trauma caused by repetitive motion, however labeled or however 
defined, are, as a matter of law, not compensable under the 
[then existing] provisions of the Act.”  Id. at 199, 467 
S.E.2d at 802.  Several months later, on September 3, 1996, 
the Court of Appeals of Virginia rendered an opinion in a 
hearing loss case, stating that “the Supreme Court’s decision 
in Jemmott mandates our holding that gradually incurred 
industrial hearing loss is a noncompensable, cumulative trauma 
condition or injury,” under the terms of the then existing 
Act.  Allied Fibers v. Rhodes, 23 Va. App. 101, 102, 474 
S.E.2d 829, 829-30 (1996). 
 
Apparently in response to Jemmott and Allied Fibers, the 
General Assembly amended the Act, effective July 1, 1997, to 
exclude carpal tunnel syndrome and hearing loss as 
 
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occupational diseases pursuant to Code § 65.2-400, but to 
include them as ordinary diseases of life under Code § 65.2-
401.  See Code § 65.2-400(C).  Accordingly, after July 1, 
1997, hearing loss is within the purview of the Act. 
 
Defendants contend that between March 1, 1996 (when we 
decided Jemmott) and July 1, 1997 (when the amendment to the 
Act became effective), a “narrow window” occurred, wherein 
claims for hearing loss caused by cumulative trauma were not 
within the purview of the Act.  By contrast, plaintiffs 
maintain that such claims were never within the purview of the 
Act before July 1, 1997. 
 
As early as 1943, in Aistrop v. Blue Diamond Coal Co., 
181 Va. 287, 24 S.E.2d 546 (1943), we noted that “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, is definitely excluded from compensation.”  Id. at 293, 
24 S.E.2d at 548 (quotation marks omitted).  Two years after 
our decision in Aistrop, the General Assembly amended the Act 
to include limited coverage for occupational diseases.  
However, as we noted in Morris v. Morris, 238 Va. 578, 586, 
385 S.E.2d 858, 863 (1989)(citing Lane Co. v. Saunders, 229 
Va. 196, 199 n.* 326 S.E.2d 702, 703 n.*), despite many 
opportunities and the passage of what has now been over 50 
 
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years, the legislature “has made no change in the Aistrop rule 
with respect to injuries gradually incurred.”  Moreover, in 
Western Elec. Co. v. Gilliam, 229 Va. 245, 247-48, 329 S.E.2d 
13, 14-15 (1985)(internal footnote omitted), we stated: 
Some contend that any disability arising out of 
and during the course of employment, including 
disabilities resulting from both injuries and 
diseases caused gradually by repeated trauma, 
should be made compensable under the Workers’ 
Compensation Act.  But such a consequential 
decision, impacting as it must a broad spectrum 
of economic and social values, is a matter of 
public policy reserved to the original and 
exclusive jurisdiction of the General Assembly, 
and we will not trespass upon its domain. 
 
 
Additionally, we have held that the Court of Appeals erred 
in holding that a torn rotator cuff muscle caused by repetitive 
trauma was compensable under the Act.  See Merillat Indus., 
Inc. v. Parks, 246 Va. 429, 436 S.E.2d 600 (1993).  Thus, from 
Aistrop in 1943 to Jemmott in 1996, this Court has consistently 
held that, whether characterized as an injury or a disease, if 
the job-related impairment “result[ed] from cumulative trauma 
caused by repetitive motion,” it was not compensable under the 
Act.  Jemmott, 251 Va. at 199, 467 S.E.2d at 802. 
 
A particular claim may be non-compensable for one of two 
reasons: (1) it does not fall within the purview of the Act, 
or (2) while within the purview of the Act, certain defenses 
preclude recovery.  Defendants assert that plaintiffs’ claims 
 
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fall within the purview of the act and its exclusivity 
provision, Code § 65.2-307.  We disagree. 
 
A similar question was presented in Middlekauff v. 
Allstate Ins. Co., 247 Va. 150, 439 S.E.2d 394 (1994), which 
involved a claim of intentional infliction of emotional 
distress from cumulative incidents.  The trial court dismissed 
Middlekauff’s tort action, holding that the exclusivity 
provision of Code § 65.2-307 barred a common law suit.  We 
reversed and held that: 
Here, Middlekauff alleges a gradually 
incurred injury caused by cumulative 
events.  Specifically, she alleges a 
“pattern of abusive behavior,” continuing 
over an extended period of time, and she 
states that this conduct caused her severe 
emotional distress.  Further, 
Middlekauff’s pleadings do not allege an 
injury that can be construed as resulting 
from an obvious sudden mechanical or 
structural change in her body.  Therefore 
. . . we conclude that Middlekauff has not 
alleged such an injury within the purview 
of the Act. 
 
Id. at 153, 439 S.E.2d at 396. 
 
The General Assembly’s modification of the Act to include 
coverage for hearing loss took effect on July 1, 1997.  As we 
have previously observed, “[r]etrospective laws are not 
favored, and a statute is always to be construed as operating 
prospectively, unless a contrary intent is manifest.”  Duffy 
v. Hartsock, 187 Va. 406, 419, 46 S.E.2d 570, 576 
 
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(1948) (quoting Whitlock v. Hawkins, 105 Va. 242, 53 S.E. 401 
(1906)).  Finding nothing in the statute expressing or even 
implying retroactive application of the amendment to the Act, 
we hold that the provision including hearing loss did not 
apply to causes of action that accrued prior to July 1, 1997. 
 
Having determined that prior to July 1, 1997, hearing 
loss was not within the purview of the Act, the employees’ 
common law right of action for damages for that injury is not 
impaired by the Act.  As we stated in Griffith v. Raven Red 
Ash Coal Co., 179 Va. 790, 798, 20 S.E.2d 530, 534 (1942): 
 
Our conclusion is that the Workmen’s 
Compensation Act is exclusive in so far as 
it covers the field of industrial 
accidents, but no further.  To the extent 
that the field is not touched by the 
statute, we think that the legislature 
intended that the employee’s common-law 
remedies against his employer are to be 
preserved unimpaired. 
 
Of course, a successfully asserted defense under the Act may 
render a particular claim non-compensable; however, there is a 
significant difference between a claim arising within the 
purview of the Act that is subject to defenses and a claim 
that is not within the purview of the Act at all.  In the 
former case, there is no recourse to common law remedies; in 
the latter case, there is.  See Williams v. Garraghty, 249 Va. 
224, 238, 455 S.E.2d 209, 218 (1995). 
 
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Defendants maintain that plaintiffs are required to file 
a workers’ compensation claim with the Commission so that 
compensability may be determined in the first instance by the 
Commission.  They suggest that such a result is compelled by 
Code § 65.2-700 which provides that “[a]ll questions arising 
under this title, if not settled by agreements of the parties 
interested therein with the approval of the Commission, shall 
be determined by the Commission, except as otherwise herein 
provided.”  We disagree. 
 
Where it is clear on the face of the pleadings that a 
claim is not within the purview of the Act, it is not 
necessary for plaintiffs to submit their claims to the 
Commission.  Certified question number two assumes that the 
claim “is not compensable under and not barred by the Virginia 
Workers’ Compensation Act.”  Because the plaintiffs are not 
within the purview of the Act, they are not required to submit 
their claims to the Commission before pursuing their common-
law causes of action. 
 
Accordingly, both of the certified questions are answered 
in the negative. 
Certified questions answered in the negative.
 
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