Opinion ID: 1301336
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Heading: Accident v. Injury Statutes of Limitation.

Text: In workers' compensation jurisprudence statutes of limitation may be classified as either injury statutes or accident statutes. An injury statute of limitation begins to run from the date of injury, while an accident statute begins to run from the date of the accident which caused the injury. We explained this in Munsingwear. As to workmen's compensation claim limitations provisions, states are sometimes classified as `accident' jurisdictions or `injury' jurisdictions. This comes from language found in the particular jurisdiction's workmen's compensation laws. This jurisdiction's language makes Oklahoma an `injury' jurisdiction. Section 43 allows the filing of the claim `within one (1) year after the injury.' We construe the date of injury as the date of the initial injury accompanying the accident. Tulsa Hotel v. Sparks, 200 Okl. 636, 198 P.2d 652 (1948). Munsingwear, Inc. v. Tullis, 557 P.2d 899 (Okl. 1976). A leading author has explained that a majority of those states that have injury statutes of limitation construe those statutes as beginning to run when a compensable injury becomes apparent. About half the states date the claim period from the `accident'; most of the rest date it from the `injury.' Under the `injury' type of statute, there is now almost complete judicial agreement that the claim period runs from the time compensable injury becomes apparent. This rule has been applied when there was a lapse of fifteen months or two years between a trauma and the development of cancer, or six years between the accident and the appearance of a cataract. It has also been applied when what appeared to be only a bloody nose developed into a deformed septum, when a bruised thumb became ultimately disabling painful, and when an apparently trivial blow led to a swollen nerve root. 3 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation, § 78.42(a) (1988). The majority opinion takes a different approach and dates an injury to the time of the accident, thus, equating our injury statute with an accident statute. Accident statutes have been the subject of criticism. A rigid claims period may operate unfairly not only because the nature, seriousness and work-connection of the injury could not reasonably be recognized by the claimant, or perhaps even by his doctor, but in many cases the injury itself does not exist in compensable degree during the claims period. This latent or delayed injury problem presents in the sharpest relief the senselessness of uncompromising time periods.    If the statute bars claims filed more than one year after the `accident,' and if the court applies the statutory language with medieval literalism, the workman can never collect for the injury no matter how diligent he is: He cannot claim during the year, because no compensable injury exists; he cannot claim after the year, because the statute runs from the accident. 3 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation, § 78.42(a) (1988). Professor Larson goes on to state: It is odd indeed to find, in a supposedly beneficent piece of legislation, the survival of this fragment of irrational cruelty surpassing the most technical forfeitures of legal statutes of limitation. Statutes of limitation generally proceed on the theory that a man forfeits his rights only when he inexcusably delays assertion of them, and any number of excuses will toll the running of the period. But here no amount of vigilance is of any help. The limitations period runs against a claim that has not yet matured; and when it matures, it is already barred. For good measure, the exclusive remedy provisions of the Compensation Act also abolish claimant's common-law remedies. 3 A. Larson, The Law of Workmen's Compensation, § 78.42(b) (1988). The majority, equating the time of the injury with that of the accident, finds that the statute of limitations in effect at the time of the accident commenced to run. In Knott v. Halliburton Services, 752 P.2d 812 (Okl. 1988), we stated that the statute of limitations in effect at the time of the injury controls. Id., 752 P.2d at 813. Thus the term injury must be defined to determine the onset of the statute of limitations. An injury in worker's compensation jurisprudence is the wrong or damage done to the person. Gulf Oil Corporation v. Rouse, 202 Okl. 395, 214 P.2d 251, 253 (1949). A worker may experience an ill effect from an accident such as a brief pain or a momentary muscle spasm, but the Worker's Compensation Act is concerned with compensable injuries. See, 85 O.S. 1971, § 22. In the case of In the Matter of Barnes, 587 P.2d 214 (Wyo. 1978), the Supreme Court of Wyoming expressed disfavor with the approach used by the majority. [I]t would do violence to the [Worker's Compensation] Act to interpret it in a way that inferred an `accident' and an `injury' identical in meaning: `   It is true that an accident frequently, perhaps usually, at the exact time of its happening, produces a compensable injury, but, as the cases above make clear, that is not always so.' Id. 62 P.2d at 539. We likewise hold that the term `injury', as used in the Worker's Compensation Law, means compensable injury and is not used in the sense of the occurrence of an industrial accident giving rise to or causing the compensable injury. Id. at 218. Oklahoma's injury statute has, since Tulsa Hotel, required application of a discovery rule. Although the application of the Stillwater Floral discovery rule would require an examination of the record to determine when the worker was aware of an ill effect caused from his employment, I would advocate a rule that the limitations period does not begin to run until the worker is aware, or should be aware, of a compensable injury caused from his employment. A worker suffering from an insidious injury would not be pushed into financial ruin, while the finders of fact in the court system could deny the stale claims of those workers who reasonably should have known of their compensable injuries. The majority's approach will cause many latent injuries to be not compensable.