Court Opinion

ID: 9626313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:08:13.827268+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:25.442262
License: Public Domain

GREENE, Judge,
dissenting.
There is no dispute in this case plaintiff suffers from hyper-reactive airways disease. The only question is whether this disease qualifies as an occupational disease within the meaning of the Workers’ Compensation Act.
Central to the Commission’s denial of benefits to plaintiff was its finding that any reaction plaintiff had to chemicals at work “was due to an unusual sensitivity on his part to small amounts of chemicals that would not be a problem for most people.” Relying on Sebastian v. Hair Styling, 40 N.C. App. 30, 251 S.E.2d 872, disc. review denied, 297 N.C. 301, 254 S.E.2d 921 (1979), the Commission then concluded “[p]laintiff’s condition was caused by his personal, unusual sensitivity to small amounts of certain chemicals.”
The Commission’s reliance on Sebastian as a basis for denying plaintiff benefits in this case is misplaced and constitutes error. Prior to 31 January 1977, the plaintiff in Sebastian had developed a skin condition due to her sensitivity to chemicals used at the hair salon for which she worked. The plaintiff’s skin condition cleared up within one month of her terminating her employment as a hair stylist, and she suffered no continuing disability as a result of the skin condition. The Commission recognized the plaintiff’s skin condition as an occupational disease and awarded medical expenses and temporary total disability benefits. The Commission did, however, deny the plaintiff any disability benefits beyond 31 January 1977, the date by which the skin condition had ceased. It was this denial of disability benefits the plaintiff appealed and which this Court considered in Sebastian. Accordingly, Sebastian does not stand for the proposition that a condition caused by the interaction of an employee’s sensitivities to work-related factors is not compensable under the Workers’ Compensation Act. Instead, Sebastian simply holds that if an employee’s occupational disease ceases after the employee leaves the work environment that caused the disease and the employee does not *446suffer from any lasting effects, she will be denied disability benefits after the healing date.
In this case, the evidence revealed and the Commission found Plaintiff had an “unusual sensitivity ... to small amounts of chemicals.” It is immaterial that this “would not be a problem for most people.” See 1 Arthur Larson, Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law § 9.02[1] (2001) (as the “employer takes the employee as it finds that employee,” an employee’s preexisting disease or infirmity is com-pensable under the Workers’ Compensation Act if the employment aggravated, accelerated, or combined with the disease or infirmity to cause disability). The relevant issues are whether plaintiff had a sensitivity to chemicals he came in contact with at work and as a result of this contact his lung disease was aggravated and, if so, whether his employment exposed him to a greater risk of having the disease aggravated than the risk assumed by the general population suffering from the disease.
I would reverse the opinion and award of the Commission and remand for the entry of new findings and conclusions.