Court Opinion

ID: 9844874
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:10:58.195671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:15:46.334748
License: Public Domain

*494Carlisle, Presiding Judge,
dissenting. While the opinion written by my able associate is most persuasive and well reasoned, I do not think that this court can reach the conclusion which it has in this case without ignoring or disregarding precedents which are binding as authority and which demand, at least to my mind, a contrary result. The only Georgia cases cited by the majority opinion as authority for the ruling now made are Southern Cotton Oil Co. v. McLain, 49 Ga. App. 177 (174 SE 726), and Lumbermen’s Mutual Cas. Co. v. Layfield, 61 Ga. App. 1 (5 SE2d 610). In the McLain case, it is true that upon reading the cross-examination of the claimant, quoted on page 184 of 49 Ga. App., it appears that the employer sought to contend that the loss of the claimant’s eye there was caused by a continuous existing condition of his employment, rather than by an accident, but the court interpreted the evidence as showing otherwise. This is so because the first headnote of that case states that the employee suffered an accident on March 12, 1932. That opinion, therefore, must be assessed as a precedent by taking into consideration this statement of the facts as interpreted’ by the court which had the case under consideration, and I do not think that the opinion and judgment rendered in that case can be viewed as based on any premise other than that of an accidental injury which occurred at a specific time. Likewise, in the Layfield case, the evidence showed a series of definite and distinct accidental injuries resulting in the disability claimed.
If these cases, however, are to be interpreted as authorizing the view here taken, I think they must yield to older and higher authority. In Simmons v. Etowah Monument Co., 42 Ga. App. 633 (157 SE 260), which was, of course, prior to the enactment of the occupational disease statute, this court had for consideration what seems to be the first recorded case involving the disease of silicosis in this State. It was held that the gradual lodging in the employee’s lungs of particles of dust inhaled by him over a period of time did not constitute an injury by accident, as that term is used in the act. A similar question was presented to the Supreme Court in Berkeley Granite Corp. v. Covington, 183 Ga. 801 (190 SE 8), wherein the court had for *495consideration the decision of the Court of Appeals (53 Ga. App. 269, 185 SE 386) holding that the disease of silicosis which was contracted by the employee over a period of time in the breathing of dust created as a condition of the employment did not constitute an accidental injury within the meaning of the Compensation Act. In affirming that decision, the Supreme Court referred at page 807 to the earlier Court of Appeals decision in Simmons v. Etowah Monument Co., supra, and adopted as a correct interpretation of the meaning of the statute the ruling there made. Both this court and the Supreme Court have held consistently prior to the enactment of the occupational disease statute (Ga. L. 1946, p. 103 et seq.; Code Ann. Ch. 114-8), and since the enactment of that law with respect to occupational diseases not expressly covered therein, that an occupational disease contracted as the result of long continued exposure to conditions of the employment, as distinguished from one contracted as the result of an injury traceable to a definitely established accidental occurrence, is not compensable. In all of the decisions of the courts of this State heretofore rendered, the courts have consistently adhered to the view that the definition of the term “injury” or “personal injury” defined in the act as meaning only the injury by accident (Code Ann. § 114-102) embodies therein the concepts of suddenness, unexpectedness, and definiteness of occurrence in time and place so as to preclude the award of compensation for a gradual injury, even though the result of trauma. See, in this connection, the cases cited by the director in support of his award denying compensation, to wit, Lumbermen’s Mutual Cas. Co. v. Lynch, 63 Ga. App. 530 (11 SE2d 699); Martin v. Tubize-Chatillon Corp., 66 Ga. App. 481 (17 SE2d 915); Peerless Woolen Mills v. Pharr, 74 Ga. App. 459, 467 (3) (40 SE2d 106); and Lumbermen’s Mutual Cas. Co. v. Griggs, 190 Ga. 277 (9 SE2d 84). If the gradual lodging or accumulation of small particles of dust in the lungs of an employee is not a traumatic injury within the meaning of that term as used in the act, I cannot see how the mere impinging of an intense noise on the eardrums of the employee can be held to be traumatic, and, therefore, accidental within the meaning of the act. I do not think that the decision of the majority *496is sustained on the authority of either Southern Cotton Oil Co. v. McLain, 49 Ga. App. 177, or Lumbermen’s Mutual Cas. Co. v. Layfield, 61 Ga. App. 1, both supra.
Furthermore, to my mind, the injury in this case does not fall within the definition of “accident” stated by the majority in the first headnote. Conceding for the sake of argument that the injury here involved resulted from traumatic occurrences, I do not think that under any view it can be described as an “unlooked-for mishap, and untoward event,” or an event not expected or designed. Neither can the injury be said to be one which does not ordinarily follow the exposure to noise of the character described in the evidence, nor can it be said that it would not be a result reasonably to be anticipated from exposure to such noise.. The court can take judicial notice (see 31 CJS 661, et seq., Evidence, § 79) of the fact that long exposure to loud noise results in deafness, at least ofttimes temporary deafness, and permanent if the exposure is lengthy enough. The injury here in question fits more readily into that class of events, which naturally result from conditions encountered in the employment. The claimant’s loss of hearing was due to his long and continued exposure to excessive noise, which was incidental to and a condition of his work. That he was, therefore, suffering from an industrial disease, to my mind admits of little doubt.
“The word 'disease,’ as a general term, may be defined as any alteration in the state of the body or of some of its organs, interrupting or disturbing the performance of the vital functions (Webster’s Dictionary; 18 CJ 1139), and in this broad sense a portion of the body might be said to be diseased when it ceases to perform its proper functions, although the disorder therein may be the mere result of some affection or malady which in its primary operation is restricted to a different area.” Pilgrim Health &c. Ins. Co. v. Gomley, 40 Ga. App. 30, 34 (148 SE 666). Int. Brotherhood v. Rodriguez (Texas Civ. App.), 193 SW2d 835, 840; Life Ins. Co. of Va. v. Mann, 28 Ala. App. 425 (186 So. 583, 585); Order of the United Commercial Travelers &c. v. Nicholson, 9 F2d 7, 14 (4). Judge Sibley stated the rule applicable to the facts of this case succinctly in Maryland Cas. *497Co. v. Broadway, 110 F2d 357, 359, when he said: . . The injury must be attributable to some definite occurrence; one must be able to assign it a time and place and cause. If it arises gradually, over a long period, with no particular happening to attribute it to, it is only a disease, though caused in a general way by the work. If it is a disease that commonly is caused by such work, it is an occupational disease, which is not compensable. But if the bodily injury is referable to a definite occurrence or series of occurrences in the work, to which a time and place can be assigned, it may be compensable though it does not result instantly.” Under the evidence in this case the director was authorized to find that the claimant here was suffering from an occupational disease. I do not think that this court is authorized, no matter how strong our sympathy for the injured man may be, to disregard clear expressions by this court and by the Supreme Court of the court’s interpretation of the meaning of “accident” and “accidental injury” and to go outside and base its decision on authorities from other jurisdictions which are not controlling as precedents on this court. Admittedly, the question now before this court is one of first impression, but the principles applicable to the question have been clearly laid down by prior decisions of this court and of the Supreme Court. The legislature has had ample opportunity over the years, if it deemed the judicial interpretation of the terms “accident” and “accidental injury” as used in the act to be too narrow and restricted, to amend the act so as to more clearly define those terms. This the legislature has not seen fit to do and I do not think this court ought, under the guise of judicial decision and basing its decision on authorities not binding on it as precedent and disregarding authorities which I deem to be binding on it as precedent, undertake to amend the act. This I feel the majority opinion does, and for these reasons I must dissent therefrom.
I am authorized to say that Judges Frankum and Jordan concur in this dissent.