Opinion ID: 1249619
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Occupational Disease Argument.

Text: The statutory definition describes an occupational disease in terms of a worker's exposure to conditions in the workplace.... The term exposure indicates a passive relationship between the worker and his work environment rather than an event or occurrence or series of occurrences, which constitute injury under the Workers' Compensation Act. Noble v. Lamoni Prods., 512 N.W.2d 290, 295 (Iowa 1994). We have said: [A]n injury is distinguished from a disease by virtue of the fact that an injury has its origin in a specific identifiable trauma or physical occurrence or, in the case of repetitive trauma, a series of such occurrences. A disease, on the other hand, originates from a source that is neither traumatic nor physical.... Id. (quoting Luttrell v. Indus. Comm'n, 154 Ill.App.3d 943, 107 Ill.Dec. 620, 507 N.E.2d 533, 541-42 (1987)). It is significant in determining whether Perkins suffered an occupational disease, or an injury under workers' compensation, that Perkins' infection was linked to a sudden, specific incident of exposure. The contraction of disease is deemed an injury by accident in most states if due to some unexpected or unusual event or exposure. Thus, infectious disease may be held accidental if the germs gain entrance through a scratch or through unexpected or abnormal exposure to infection. 3 Larson's Workmen's Compensation Law § 51, at 51-1 (2002). Under our case law, [a] personal injury, contemplated by the Workmen's Compensation Law, obviously means an injury to the body, the impairment of health, or a disease, not excluded by the act, which comes about, not through the natural building up and tearing down of the human body, but because of a traumatic or other hurt or damage to the health or body of an employee.... The injury to the human body here contemplated must be something, whether an accident or not, that acts extraneously to the natural processes of nature, and thereby impairs the health, overcomes, injures, interrupts, or destroys some function of the body, or otherwise damages or injures a part or all of the body. This is the personal injury contemplated by [the workers' compensation statute]. St. Luke's Hosp. v. Gray, 604 N.W.2d 646, 650-51 (Iowa 2000) (quoting Dunlavey v. Econ. Fire & Cas. Co., 526 N.W.2d 845, 850-51 (Iowa 1995)) (citations omitted); see also Dyke v. St. Francis Hosp., Inc., 861 P.2d 295, 301-02 (Okla.1993); Enid State Sch. v. Mitchell, 590 P.2d 1179, 1180 (Okla.1978); City of Nichols Hills v. Hill, 534 P.2d 931, 934-35 (Okla.1975). We agree with the industrial commissioner, the district court, and the court of appeals that this was an injury under the workers' compensation provisions of Iowa Code chapter 85, not an occupational disease under chapter 85A. The issue still to be resolved is the application of the statute of limitations and the discovery rule.