Court Opinion

ID: 9719967
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:10:58.319763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:11.660688
License: Public Domain

Connolly, J.,
dissenting.
I agree with the preceding dissent’s “accident” analysis. However, in my opinion, it is time for this court to recognize that arbitrarily requiring the victims of work-related, repetitive-stress injuries to demonstrate an “identifiable point in time” at which the “accident” occurred is to carry on a legal charade. There is no satisfactory rationale, statutory or otherwise, for pigeonholing repetitive-stress injuries into the “accident” category and disallowing any showing that such an injury is an “ ‘occupational disease.’ ” See Schlup v. Auburn Needleworks, 239 Neb. 854, 869, 479 N.W.2d 440, 450 (1992) (Shanahan, J., concurring). An occupational disease is properly defined as “a condition which causes impairment, deviation, or interruption of the normal structure or function of a worker’s body and which results from hazards or conditions peculiar to a particular occupation or employment.” Id. I believe that Justice Shanahan’s well-reasoned concurrence in Schlup was correct: A work-related, repetitive-stress injury may be compensable as an “occupational disease” under Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 48-101 (Reissue 1998) and 48-151(3) (Reissue 1993). Therefore, I would overrule Schlup and Maxson v. Michael Todd & Co., 238 Neb. 209, 469 N.W.2d 542 (1991), and allow the compensation *919court to consider whether Frank’s injuries were the result of an occupational disease. The decision of the Court of Appeals should be reversed and the cause remanded to the compensation court for a new trial in accordance with this opinion. I respectfully dissent.