Opinion ID: 1301336
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the statutory time to file a workers' compensation claim for a single-event injury begins to run from the date of the accident

Text: The worker argues the limitation period did not begin to run until he discovered the full extent of his injury. [4] We must recede from this view. In Stillwater Floral Company v. Murray , [5] a single-event injury case, this court held that the terms of 85 O.S. 1961 § 43 (the version then under review) barred a worker's compensation claim because it was not filed within one year after an injury. There, we said an injury is inflicted at the time of the accident, not when its full extent is first noted. [6] More specifically, the court's construction of the compensation law was that it  has no provision [relative to a single-event injury] for computing the limitation period from the time disability develops... . [and that the court is] `not free, under the guise of construction, to amend the statute by inserting therein before the word `injury' the word `compensable' so as to make `injury' read as if it were `disability'.' [Emphasis added.] [7] Stillwater Floral does not stand alone on this point; we have repeatedly rejected the argument that the one-year limitation begins to run when the disability occasioned by an accidental injury becomes fully apparent. [8] In support of his awareness argument, the worker relies on Munsingwear, Inc. v. Tullis , a cumulative-effect injury case, where we held the limitation period begins to run when the worker is aware, or should be aware, of some defect that is causally connected with the job. [9] There we observed:  Stillwater Floral Company v. Murray ... suggests the injury need not be one capable of full medical evaluation, but an injury with the accident sufficient for the workman to be aware, or should be aware, of some defect or some ill effect, produced thereby. [Emphasis added.] [10] The worker misinterprets the teaching of Munsingwear. Our ruling in that case is rested on the language of § 43 then in effect [11] and on the character of the worker's injury. Munsingwear was not intended to be a blank endorsement of an awareness doctrine similar to the discovery rule, [12] which applies in general civil litigation. [13] Its teaching was but an adaptation of the Stillwater Floral principle that the § 43 one-year limitation begins to run at the time of the accidental injury which is known or should have been known, not from the time the full extent of the worker's disability becomes manifest. Because Stillwater Floral defines injury by reference to the time of the accident, [14] it was necessary in Munsingwear to settle on the exact point in time when repeated exposure to noxious smoke will culminate in an accident. The essence of the Munsingwear reasoning is that the cumulative effect of repeated microtrauma or exposure to hazardous conditions does not become an accident until a worker is aware, or should be aware, of a defect that is causally connected with his job. This conclusion accommodates the peculiar characteristic of a cumulative-effect injury  a phenomenon that occurs imperceptibly and unexpectedly. [15] Conversely, where there is a single event (like an automobile accident), the injurious occurrence itself is far from latent. [16] Some ill effect, however trivial, will be or should be recognizable immediately. [17] When the worker knows that a single-event industrial accident has taken place, he (or she) is charged with awareness of its occurrence. This, in turn, raises legal awareness of compensable injury, present or potential. Awareness of potential injury, much like that of immediate harm, imposes a duty upon the worker to protect his rights by filing a timely claim. Properly analyzed, Stillwater Floral and Munsingwear apply the same test under different factual scenarios. The former teaches the test's proper application where a worker is injured in a single, finite accident. By the latter the same rule is refitted for use limited to cumulative-effect injuries. [18] Although § 43 has been amended three times since Stillwater Floral, our lawmaking body has not altered the statute's substantive language insofar as it regulates the time to bring claims for single-event injuries. [19] The legislature must hence be deemed to have ratified our prior interpretation of § 43. [20] In sum, the language of § 43 clearly militates against a construction that would allow engrafting a tort-like discovery rule. Rather, the time to file a claim for a single-event injury runs from the time the worker is charged with legal awareness of the present or potential ill effect, not from the onset or manifestation of disability or impairment. Our current statutory scheme makes a similar rule applicable to claimants who seek compensation for most cumulative-effect injuries. [21] Only for asbestosis, silicosis or exposure to nuclear radiation does the limitation period now in effect begin to run from the date of manifestation. 85 O.S.Supp. 1986 § 43(A). The cited enactment's restriction operates as an explicit exception from the general regime for application to some forms of cumulative-effect injuries. The legislative enumeration of compensable harms singled out from others clearly prohibits a judicial extension of similar exceptions both to single-event or to other kinds of cumulative-effect injuries, regardless of apparent hardship or inconvenience. [22]