Court Opinion

ID: 9539551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:05:58.493299+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:57.149330
License: Public Domain

Steffen, J.,
concurring:
Although I join in the opinion written by my brother Springer, I have also elected to write a separate concurrence in order to address certain aspects of this unfortunate case that were either not raised in the court’s opinion or were not responsive to certain points raised in the concurring opinion by my brother Young.
As a general proposition, I suggest with substantial reluctance that Palmer’s claim for relief under the provisions of the Nevada Occupational Disease Act (NODA) must be denied because all of the deleterious effects of smoking, even to assiduous non-smokers like Palmer who have suffered from exposure to secondary smoke, must currently be recognized as products of a non-venereal form of “social disease.” For many years the government has promoted the tobacco industry in this country through subsidies and price-supports. Until comparatively recent years, smoking was almost uniformly promoted as a socially desirable and fashionable habit that left non-smokers with few public havens to avoid air polluted by smokers. Indeed, even today, smoking is promoted in advertising and the entertainment industry as being idiosyncratic to any number of attractively portrayed people.
It is in this milieu of socially acceptable tobacco pollution that *696almost every aspect of public intercourse became immersed. Not unexpectedly, casinos were hardly an exception. Even the airlines formerly distributed free samples of cigarettes in furtherance of the ubiquitous effort on the part of the tobacco companies to place ever increasing percentages of humankind within the shackles of their products. The results have been predictable, and despite the belated efforts of the United States Government and certain health agencies and medical groups to enlighten the American public on the serious health hazards associated with smoking — or with exposure to secondary smoke created by others — vast numbers of our citizens remain addicted to tobacco.
Although Palmer has produced strong evidence of his success in avoiding environmental tobacco smoke to any great degree other than at his place of employment at the High Sierra, I am thoroughly persuaded that our Legislature never contemplated the inclusion of disease attributable to tobacco smoke within the purview of NODA. Unfortunately, the pervasive problems related to smoking that continue to plague society and its taxpayers (whether in the form of taxpayers’ subsidies on the enormous health costs that are generated through tobacco-caused illnesses, or in attempting to provide educational disincentives for smoking, or in progressively freeing our public buildings and other public places from tobacco pollution, to name but a few) provide definition to the extent of potential problems that could arise from judicially engrafting tobacco-related diseases within our legislatively created scheme of workmen’s compensation. The judicial laboratory is ill-equipped to define the financial and administrative impact that would result from making smoke-related or smoke-caused disease compensable under NODA. Clearly, the Legislature is best suited for undertaking the studies, conducting the hearings, and determining the consequences that would ensue from including disease from exposure to secondary tobacco smoke in the work place within the categories of disease that are compensable under NODA. It is substantially on this basis that I concur in the denial of benefits to Palmer.
I deem it unwise to simply leave unchallenged the position asserted by Justice Young which, with certain statutory exceptions, would limit relief under NODA to the twenty-two diseases identified under NRS 617.450. Although the issue addressed by my colleague’s concurrence was not raised on appeal, and was thus disregarded in the majority opinion, I am reluctant to risk the possibility that failure to respond may be viewed by some as a form of deference for the position.
I do not accept the proposition that the Legislature, either by the wording of its statutes or the most limited of its contemplations, ever intended to provide relief only to those employees who *697fall prey to the twenty-two identified diseases, while denying relief to those who suffer occupational disease of a type not yet catalogued under NRS 617.450. The result of such a scheme would be unfair, discriminatory, and most probably lacking in a rational basis.
Before addressing what I consider to be a fallacious view of the statutory language by Justice Young, I note that the general approach he assumes concerning relief for employees impacted by occupational disease is contrary to the position we have consistently taken in our cases concerning the policy served by Nevada’s industrial insurance system. Justice Young proceeds from the premise that any ambiguity in NODA (and I find none regarding the point under discussion) should be resolved “in favor of the legislature’s restrictive intent.” This court, on the other hand, has declared that:
[C]ompensation laws were enacted as a humanitarian measure. The modern trend is to construe the industrial insurance acts broadly and liberally, to protect the interest of the injured worker and his dependents. A reasonable, liberal and practical construction is preferable to a narrow one, since these acts are enacted for the purpose of giving compensation, not for the denial thereof.
Nevada Indus. Comm’n v. Peck, 69 Nev. 1, 11-12, 239 P.2d 244, 248 (1952). See, e.g., Spencer v. Harrah’s Inc., 98 Nev. 99, 641 P.2d 481 (1982) (humanitarian purposes of workmen’s compensation laws compels liberal construction in favor of claimants); Desert Inn Casino & Hotel v. Moran, 106 Nev. 334, 792 P.2d 400 (1990) (workmen’s compensation statutes must be liberally construed consistent with legislative intent to protect workers).
Turning to the pertinent statutes, Justice Young contends that NRS 617.450 exclusively identifies the particular occupational diseases that may constitute the basis for a claim by an afflicted employee.1 I disagree. The Legislature has been able to identify and itemize specific diseases that are most often employment-related, and describe the employment process or environment that is conducive to contraction of each such disease. There is nothing endemic to the identified diseases that would prompt the Legislature to grant relief to employees suffering from those diseases while denying relief for work-generated diseases not identified on the list. This is precisely why the Legislature pro*698vided an additional basis for relief for non-listed, work-generated diseases in the language of NRS 617.450.
The statutory language of NRS 617.450 commences as follows: “The following diseases, as well as other occupational diseases defined in NRS 617.440, shall be considered occupational diseases . . . .” (emphasis supplied). The highlighted phrase clearly means “to the same extent or degree as” the identified diseases. The phrase incorporates as additional covered diseases those which are not identified by name but by the criteria defined under NRS 617.440.2 Justice Young’s rationale would render NRS 617.440 redundant and meaningless by characterizing it as addressing only the causation element required for recovering industrial compensation. Moreover, my colleague further opines that NRS 617.440 is not a “catch-all” section from which the list of covered diseases may be expanded by judicial fiat. I suggest that Justice Young misperceives both the intent and the effect of the statute.
First, NRS 617.440 advances the basic purposes of the State Industrial Insurance System (SIIS) by providing a basis for relief to employees who have contracted an unnamed occupational disease as a result of their employment. NRS 617.440 stands as a tacit recognition by the Legislature that its index of occupational diseases does not purport to be complete, and that all employees who suffer occupational disease traceable to their employment are entitled to compensation. Second, NRS 617.440 is self-executing and does not require activation by judicial fiat. The statute sets forth the criteria necessary for a sustainable claim in terms readily understood and implemented by SIIS. The statute *699does not provide a basis for excluding coverage to workers smitten by occupational diseases that have not yet found their way onto the list set forth in NRS 617.450.
Justice Young gravely declares that the court is “creating a breeding ground” for modern occupational diseases that could provide a “crushing impact” on our “financially floundering” industrial insurance system. My colleague thus apparently justifies a scheme where only certain favored workers are compensated for occupational disease, while others are denied protection based upon some arbitrary classification or omission from classification. Such has never been the intent or the thrust of our workmen’s compensation system. If the system is floundering financially, and there are indications that financial difficulties do exist, the solution is not to dispense relief by caprice or favor. Justice Young may as well argue that a suffering worker’s entitlement to compensation for occupational disease should be determined by a coin toss. Such methodology, no more unfair than that espoused by my colleague, would certainly provide financial relief to the system.
Finally, Justice Young throws a gratuitous sop to our societal victim, Palmer, by devoting substantial print indicating why, if he were to interpret the statutes consistent with today’s opinion, he would rule in favor of Palmer. I am unable to resist extending the exercise to the extent of noting that despite the cogent evidence Palmer produced indicating that his disease is attributable to secondary smoke at his place of work, he does not satisfy the criteria set forth in NRS 617.440(2) which requires that the disease be incidental to the character of the business.
There is nothing inherent in casino operations that requires a smoke-laden environment. Gaming could occur in the midst of patrons presenting odoriferous problems in personal hygiene just as well as it could in the midst of secondary tobacco smoke. Both conditions would be offensive to many, but neither is essential to gaming nor a characteristic of the business. As indicated by Justice Springer in the court’s opinion, coal dust is an expected and incidental characteristic of the coal mining industry, but smoking and secondary smoke is not a characteristic of gaming operations. An analysis of the twenty-two diseases and the processes by which they are contracted, as specified under NRS 617.450, reveals the point made here. Without exception, the listed diseases represent conditions precipitated by processes of production, handling or use within the business or industry. In neither NRS 617.440 nor NRS 617.450 is provision made for coverage for diseases arising out of social practice, habit, or convenience that are unrelated or non-incidental to the nature or characteristics of the business in which the worker is engaged. *700Unfortunately, this is another reason why Palmer would not be entitled to compensation under the circumstances of this case.

 Justice Young’s concurrence also recognizes the special relief available to firemen and police officers for certain diseases provided for under chapter 617 in addition to relief stated separately concerning silicosis. Other than these “exceptions,” the position taken by my colleague would limit relief for occupational disease to the twenty-two diseases listed under NRS 617.450.

 NRS 617.440 reads as follows:
1. An occupational disease defined in this chapter shall be deemed to arise out of and in the course of the employment if:
(a) There is a direct causal connection between the conditions under which the work is performed and the occupational disease;
(b) It can be seen to have followed as a natural incident of the work as a result of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the employment;
(c) It can be fairly traced to the employment as the proximate cause; and
(d) It does not come from a hazard to which workmen would have been equally exposed outside of the employment.
2. The disease must be incidental to the character of the business and not independent of the relation of the employer and employee.
3. The disease need not have been foreseen or expected, but after its contraction must appear to have had its origin in a risk connected with the employment, and to have flowed from that source as a natural consequence.
4. In cases of disability resulting from radium poisoning or exposure to radioactive properties or substances, or to roentgen rays (X-rays) or ionizing radiation, the poisoning or illness resulting in disability must have been contracted in the State of Nevada.