Court Opinion

ID: 9578277
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:43:37.672285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:25:26.730149
License: Public Domain

Caplan, Judge,
dissenting:
Respectfully, I dissent from the opinion of the majority. My dissent does not reflect a difference of opinion so far as the law stated in the majority opinion is concerned, but goes rather to the application of the law to the facts of this case. So far as I have been able to determine, the claimant suffered an injury to his back as a result of lifting a box weighing seventy-five pounds. That this occurred during his employment is not in dispute. Therefore, the only other element that must be proved to find the claim compensable is that such injury resulted from the employment.
The injury, to be compensable, must be the result of a single, isolated, fortuitous event. In my opinion, that event was the lifting of the box. Proof was offered, and it was undisputed, that the claimant suffered pain in his back when he lifted the seventy-five pound box. This is what the claimant said on his C.D. 6 Form when he reported his injury. When this is not contested, what further need be proved? Is it material that he later testified that the mat slipped and that the board of appeals refused to believe such later testimony? I think not. The claimant’s unrefuted proof is that he injured his back when, while employed by Union Carbide, he lifted a *169box of insulation weighing seventy-five pounds. Inasmuch as this is not disputed, I believe that it is immaterial that, as the majority put it, there were “three versions of occurrence.” None of the related versions tend to prove in any degree that the claimant did not injure his back as the result of lifting the box of insulation.
Furthermore, I cannot agree with the majority- in holding that the claimant’s injury is not compensable because he had a preexisting back condition. This, in my opinion, cannot be considered “in the category of ‘mixed’ risk, when a personal cause and an employment cause may combine to produce the harm”, as stated by the majority. It has long been held that an employer takes an employee in his then state of health and physical condition and that a preexisting injury will not preclude compensability for a second injury, even if of the same part of the body. As stated in a concurring opinion in Caldwell v. Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner, 106 W.Va. 14, 144 S.E. 568: “An employee is certainly none the less entitled to compensation because he is unfortunate enough to carry on his body the effects of a former or primary injury, even though a later injury, being the one for which he seeks compensation, would not have been so serious but for the lingering effects of the former.”
It must be kept in mind at this stage of the instant case we are not concerned with the percentage of disability to be awarded to this claimant. This is a determination of compensability only. If such claim is found to be compensable further hearings will be held to determine the percentage of disability, if any, and at that time the former or preexisting back injury may be considered in determining the award.
The present case is not affected by the so-called heart attack cases wherein this Court has held that a prior adverse heart condition when not aggravated by a single, isolated, fortuitous occurrence will not be compensable in the event of severe illness or death. I vigorously disagree with the thought that merely because an *170employee is performing his usual and ordinary tasks of employment he cannot be compensated for injury received in the performance of such tasks. Such an interpretation applies only to heart attacks, strokes and associated cases where a preexisting disease was quite obviously the cause of the injury or death and not an injury received in his employment.
Even if, as related by the majority, there were three versions as to how the instant injury occurred, there is not, as I understand the facts, any denial that the claimant suffered a sharp pain in his back when he lifted the seventy-five pound box of insulation. This constitutes a single, fortuitous, isolated occurrence which furnishes the basis of compensability. Regardless of the other two versions, the board was clearly wrong in ignoring this undisputed relation of facts. ' Whether or not the mat slipped is immaterial and the preexisting back condition, in this case, is of no consequence. This injury occurred during the course of his employment and, as exhibited, certainly as a result of such employment. In support of the proposition that an injury is compensable if it occurs in the course of and as a result of his employment, see Barnett v. State Workmen’s Compensation Commissioner & Gauley Coal & Coke Co., 153 W.Va. 796, 172 S.E.2d 698; Deverick v. State Compensation Director, 150 W.Va. 145, 144 S.E.2d 498; Emmel v. State Compensation Director, 150 W.Va. 277, 145 S.E.2d 29.
I am fully aware of the well established principle holding that the finding of the appeal board will not be reversed unless it is clearly wrong. In this instance I believe that the claimant has carried the burden of proof as to the compensability of his injury and that the board is clearly wrong. I would remand this case for hearing to determine the percentage of disability, if any.