Court Opinion

ID: 9690162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:55:32.37549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:53.865642
License: Public Domain

Grant, J.,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. This is obviously a close case, but it appears to me that in affirming the judgment of the *214compensation court, we are diluting our holding in Sandel v. Packaging Co. of America, 211 Neb. 149, 317 N.W.2d 910 (1982). In Sandel we stated, referring to the work of “[t]he noted workmen’s compensation authority, Larson, ” as follows:
In IB Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law § 39.49 (1980), Larson suggests that the occurrence of pain and the need for medical attention is sufficient to designate the occurring of an accident “suddenly and violently” even though the initial effect of the pain and the subsequent injury may have been much earlier and simply continued to build until it reached the point at which the employee could no longer perform the required work.
Sandel, supra at 161, 317 N.W.2d at 917.
Later, in Hayes v. A.M. Cohron, Inc., 224 Neb. 579, 582, 400 N.W.2d 244, 246 (1987), we stated that “in Nebraska the definition of ‘accident,’ as used in Neb. Rev. Stat. § 48-101 (Reissue 1984), includes injuries resulting from activities which create a series of repeated traumas ultimately producing disability.”
In this case, plaintiff, while seeing his doctor for what plaintiff describes as “a routine physical,” told the doctor that his shoulder, elbow, and back had been “more sore lately than it ever has been, and my shoulder hurt, and my back was giving me problems ....”
The doctor sent plaintiff to an orthopedic surgeon. Plaintiff further testified: “[H]e told me that all the discs in my back were flatting [sic], and that I’ve got a torn rotator cuff in my shoulder, and he said I had to — couldn’t be lifting the heavy stuff anymore because my back was out.”
The internist who examined plaintiff stated in his report:
It’s hard to say that he may not have had some degenerative arthritis of his spine given time, but I certainly feel that the wear and tear of heavy lifting have hastened progress, aggravated the situation, and now he is at the point where he is unable to lift, or in fact do much bending over without a tremendous amount of low back pain.
In other words, it seems to me that a hard, conscientious worker just keeps working until the worker reaches “the point *215where he [or she] is unable to lift.” That point should be sufficient to constitute an accident in the same manner a carpal tunnel or “tennis elbow” injury results in a compensable accident.
This plaintiff’s injury may be likened to “tennis elbow” or carpal tunnel injuries, such as those in Sandel v. Packaging Co. of America, supra, and in Crosby v. American Stores, 207 Neb. 251, 298 N.W.2d 157 (1980). The obvious difference is that it took this worker longer to break down than it took the plaintiffs in those cases. I do not think, however, we should, in effect, punish the tough worker who does not drop to the floor in pain and grab his or her back or shoulder every time pain results from the job being done.
I would reverse.
Shanahan, J., joins in this dissent.