Court Opinion

ID: 9568085
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:00:32.474071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:24:19.207679
License: Public Domain

CHIEF JUSTICE CARRICO, with whom JUSTICE COMPTON joins,
dissenting.
In reversing the judgment of the trial court, a majority of this Court refuses to follow Haddon v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 239 Va. 397, 389 S.E.2d 712 (1990), and holds, instead, that the outcome of the case is controlled by Aistrop v. Blue Diamond Coal Co., 181 Va. 287, 24 S.E.2d 546 (1943), and its progeny, including Morris v. Morris, 238 Va. 578, 385 S.E.2d 858 (1989). Indeed, three members of the majority would go so far as to overrule Haddon, which was decided less than four years ago.
I thought the doctrine of stare decisis was “more than a mere cliche” in Virginia. Selected Risks Insurance Co. v. Dean, 233 Va. 260, 265, 355 S.E.2d 579, 581 (1987). But, as a result of the majority’s action today, the doctrine will not even occupy the status of a cliche in this Court.
In Morris, we held that an injury is not an injury by accident within the meaning of the Workers’ Compensation Act if it results from “repetitive trauma, continuing mental or physical stress, or other cumulative events.” Id. at 589, 385 S.E.2d at 865. Today’s plurality *156opinion states that, in Haddon, “the issue whether the gradually incurred nature of the injury . . . excluded it from the purview of the Act was not raised by assignment of error or directly addressed by this Court.” The plurality opinion also states that the Haddon opinion did not make “any reference to Morris.”
But even a casual reading of the Haddon opinion will reveal why the Court did not refer to Morris and why the issue of the “gradually incurred nature of the injury” was not assigned as error or addressed by the Court. Haddon simply was not, as the present matter is not, a case controlled by the rule applicable to gradually incurred injury. Rather, Haddon was, as the present matter is, a case controlled by the rule applicable to injury resulting from an intentional tort occurring in the workplace. And, as the doctrine of stare decisis required us to do, we gave effect to precedent, established in our earlier decisions, “which places an injury caused by the intentional tort of an employer or fellow employee within the definition of injury by accident under the Act.” Haddon, 239 Va. at 399, 389 S.E.2d at 714. See Hopson v. Hungerford Coal Co., Inc., 187 Va. 299, 46 S.E.2d 392 (1948); A. N. Campbell & Co. v. Messenger, 171 Va. 374, 199 S.E. 511 (1938); Continental Life Insurance Co. v. Gough, 161 Va. 755, 172 S.E. 264 (1934).
In this case, I would apply the doctrine of stare decisis and give effect to this Court’s decision in Haddon as well as the earlier cases upon which it was based. As a result, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.*

 It should be emphasized that, while five justices vote to reverse the judgment of the trial court, only three vote to overrule Haddon. Hence, Haddon remains intact.