Court Opinion

ID: 9789451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:36:32.066848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:22.493631
License: Public Domain

URBIGKIT, Justice,
dissenting.
This court incorrectly affirms the trial court’s finding that the accident of February 15, 1984 constituted a readily apparent injury, in disregard of the additional requirement for knowledge of compensability first established for Wyoming Worker’s Compensation law by Baldwin v. Scullion, 50 Wyo. 508, 62 P.2d 531, 108 A.L.R. 304 (1936).
This court has consistently held “that the Worker’s Compensation Act should receive a liberal construction to accomplish the benevolent purposes for which it was promulgated.” In re Barnes, Wyo., 587 P.2d 214, 218 (1978); Mor, Inc. v. Haverlock, Wyo., 566 P.2d 219, 222 (1977); Baldwin v. Scullion, supra. In 1936, this court stated in Baldwin the now long-standing rule that “ ‘[t]he injury is not the accident but the result of the accident. If the result is delayed, the injury is delayed.’ ” 62 P.2d at 535, quoting from Wheeler v. Missouri Pac. R. Co., 328 Mo. 888, 42 S.W.2d 579, 581 (1931). In 1978, under the now applicable statute, the Barnes court agreed:
“We likewise hold that the term ‘injury’, as used in the Worker’s Compensation Law, means compensable injury and is not used in the sense of the occurrence of an industrial accident giving rise to or causing the compensable injury.” (Emphasis added.) 587 P.2d at 218.
See also Big Horn Coal Company v. War-tensleben, Wyo., 502 P.2d 187, 188 (1972). The Barnes court further stated that it would
“ * * * do violence to the Act were we to say that merely because an employee is aware at the time of the accident that a compensable injury may manifest itself * * * sometime in the future, that knowledge will bar a future claim based upon the earlier accident and injury." 587 P.2d at 218.
There is no doubt that Ms. Grindle knew she had sustained some sort of injury at the time of the initial incident. What she did not know was that it would involve later medical treatment or a claim under *171the Worker’s Compensation law as a continuing injury. As the majority point out, she “felt a sharp pain, which then became a severe but dull pain.” However, § 27-12-503(a), W.S.1977, as interpreted by this court, requires the trial court to determine whether or not compensable injuries were readily apparent at the time of the accident. According to Ms. Grindle’s uncontro-verted testimony, she did not believe her injury to be serious:
“Q. Did you think at that time that you had done some kind of physical damage to your back?
“A. I thought I just pulled a muscle, a muscle that would, you know, just remedy itself. That’s the reason I didn’t even think about seeing a doctor myself.”
Ms. Grindle continued to work after the accident, despite chronic, but not continuous pain. Eventually she began to experience numbness in “her bottom and down both legs.” Ms. Grindle’s injury became compensable when she first gained knowledge of her disability. Neither Ms. Grin-dle’s continued employment nor the gradual onset of her compensable injury affect her right to compensation:
“[I]t seems to us palpably unjust to the employee to deny him compensation because he has tried to keep his place bn the employer’s pay roll by doing his regular work and then has found that conditions produced at the time of the accident, and which medical science could not recognize or whose final consequences it could not forecast, have gradually and ultimately produced a compensable injury.” 62 P.2d at 539.
In Big Horn Coal Company v. Warten-sleben, supra, this court cited with approval Potter v. Midland Cooperatives, Inc., 248 Minn. 380, 80 N.W.2d 59, 61 (1956):
“ * * * In that case the Minnesota Supreme Court stated, where an employee in the course of his employment sustains an apparent trivial injury which does not result in present disability and which would not reasonably be expected to cause future disability, but which injury in fact after a period of latency does cause future disability, the time for giving notice of the occurrence of the injury to the employer runs from the time when it becomes apparent that such injury has resulted in, or is likely to cause, compen-sable disability.” 502 P.2d at 188.
It is precisely that standard for the commencement of the limitation statute which § 27-12-503(a) seeks to effectuate. The statute creates a permissive limitation for injuries not readily apparent; compensation is not precluded until one year after the injury is discovered by the employee. I would hold that an injury is discovered when it becomes apparent that such injury has resulted in, or is likely to cause, com-pensable disability. In this case, the time for filing the claim should have run from the time when it became apparent to Ms. Grindle that her fall had resulted in, or was likely to cause, a compensable injury.
On February 15, 1984, the fact that Ms. Grindle had injured herself was readily apparent; but that she had incurred compen-sable injuries was not then known. I find no support in the record for the conclusion that Ms. Grindle received a readily apparent compensable injury on the day she fell. Absent this support, the trial court’s finding that the “injury was readily apparent to the Claimant on February 15, 1984” is factually true, but invokes an erroneous principle for denial, contrary to prior decisions of this court, jSemis v. Texaco, Inc., Wyo., 400 P.2d 529, reh. denied 401 P.2d 708 (1965), is expressly contrary to the present decision which now eliminates com-pensability from the limitation factors of readily apparent injuries. See also In re Barnes, supra. Knowledge of compensa-bility, as the time-test factor for statute of limitations compliance, is missing in the court’s decision since the determining factor for filing limitations is the discovery of compensability, and not the occurrence of some injury which could be self-correcting without medical care or time lost from employment.
The compensability rule of earlier Wyoming cases is similarly recognized in other jurisdictions. Shepherd v. Easterling
*172Construction Company, 7 Ark.App. 192, 646 S.W.2d 37 (1983) (knee); Dillinger v. City of Sioux City, Iowa, 368 N.W.2d 176 (1985) (back); Rebiski v. Pioneer Telephone Company, Minn., 262 N.W.2d 424 (1978) (back); Bowerman v. Employment Security Commission, Mont., 673 P.2d 476 (1983) (tendonitis); Smith v. Dowell Corporation, a Division of Dow Chemical, USA, 102 N.M. 102, 692 P.2d 27 (1984) (back); Jones v. Home Indemnity Insurance Company, Tenn., 679 S.W.2d 445 (1984) (back); Houston General Insurance Company v. Vera, Tex.App., 638 S.W.2d 102 (1982) (back). See also 3 Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law § 78.40 at 15-155 et seq.
Since the standard applied here by this court is contrary to its established precedent, as well as the intent of the constitutional amendment and our statute providing for employee benefits, I respectfully dissent.