Ceasco, Inc. v. Byrom

• Court: Alabama Court of Civil Appeals
• Writing for the Court: CRAWLEY.
• Citation: Ceasco Inc. v. Byrom, 895 So.2d 932 (Ala. Civ. App. 2002)
• Decision Date: 15 November 2002
• Parties: CEASCO, INC., d/b/a Skill Lube v. Richard BYROM.

895 So.2d 932

CEASCO, INC., d/b/a Skill Lube v. Richard BYROM.

2010541.

Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama.

November 15, 2002.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing March 14, 2003.

James L. Stirling, Birmingham, for appellant.

Michael K. Timberlake of Siniard, Timberlake & League, P.C., Huntsville, for appellee. CRAWLEY, Judge.

I. Facts and Procedural History

Richard Byrom ("the worker") was employed by Ceasco, Inc., d/b/a Skill Lube ("the company"), as a service manager at an automobile service and repair store operated by the company in Madison. As a part of his job, the worker made telephone calls to customers, vendors, employees, and supervisors. The worker was responsible for ordering parts, answering questions regarding repairs, giving price quotations, and checking on large accounts and outstanding accounts. Approximately 30% of the worker's day was spent on the telephone, performing these duties.

On July 24, 1998, as the worker was on the telephone as a part of his customary duties, the telephone line was struck by lightning; the worker received an electrical shock through the telephone, which caused him to lose consciousness. The worker does not recall the incident, but remembers only talking on the telephone and then waking up approximately six feet away on the floor. He contends that the shock threw him six feet and that he landed on the concrete floor, hitting his head. The worker suffered a fracture to the C2 spinous process and has what he describes as "blackouts."

The worker sued the company, seeking workers' compensation benefits. After a trial, the trial court awarded benefits to the worker, finding him permanently and totally disabled. The company appeals the trial court's judgment.

II. Standard of Review

Our review of this case is governed by the Workers' Compensation Act, which states, in pertinent part: "In reviewing pure findings of fact, the finding of the circuit court shall not be reversed if that finding is supported by substantial evidence." Ala.Code 1975, § 25-5-81(e)(2). Therefore, this court "will view the facts in the light most favorable to the findings of the trial court." Whitsett v. BAMSI, Inc., 652 So.2d 287, 290 (Ala.Civ.App.1994), overruled on other grounds, Ex parte Trinity Indus., Inc., 680 So.2d 262, 269 (Ala.1996). Further, the trial court's factual finding is supported by substantial evidence if it is "supported by `evidence of such weight and quality that fair-minded persons in the exercise of impartial judgment can reasonably infer the existence of the fact sought to be proved.'" Ex parte Trinity Indus., 680 So.2d at 269 (quoting West v. Founders Life Assurance Co. of Florida, 547 So.2d 870, 871 (Ala.1989) and citing § 12-21-12(d)). Our review of legal issues is without a presumption of correctness. Ala.Code 1975, § 25-5-81(e)(1); see also Ex parte Trinity Indus., 680 So.2d at 268.

III. Arguments of the Parties

The company specifically contends that the worker's injuries were caused by a "nonaccidental" event. Based on this contention, the company argues that the worker was required to prove legal causation, i.e., that in performing the duties for which he was hired he was exposed to a risk materially in excess of the risk to which all people are normally exposed in their everyday lives. See Ex parte Trinity Indus., Inc., 680 So.2d 262, 266-68 (Ala.1996); City of Tuscaloosa v. Howard, 55 Ala.App. 701, 705, 318 So.2d 729, 732 (Ala.Civ.App.1975). According to the company, the worker's evidence failed to establish that in performing his duties he was exposed to a risk materially in excess of the risk to which people are normally exposed in their everyday lives.

The worker, however, argues that he need not prove that he was exposed to a risk materially in excess of the risk to which people are normally exposed in their everyday lives. Instead, the worker contends that his being struck by lightning was an "accidental" — as opposed to "nonaccidental" — injury and that he therefore was required to prove only that the injury occurred "`within the period of [his] employment, at a place where [he would] reasonably be and while [he was] reasonably fulfilling the duties of [his] employment or engaged in doing something incident to it.'" Kewish v. Alabama Home Builders Self Insurers Fund, 664 So.2d 917, 922 (Ala.Civ.App.1995) (quoting Massey v. United States Steel Corp., 264 Ala. 227, 230, 86 So.2d 375, 378 (1955)). Thus, he says, he met his burden by showing that he was injured during working hours, while conducting business on the telephone in the company's office. However, in the alternative, the worker does argue that, in the event this court disagrees with his position and determines that the injury was nonaccidental and that the legal-causation standard adopted by our supreme court in Ex parte Trinity Industries does apply, he did present substantial evidence sufficient to carry his burden under that standard.

In addition to the legal-causation issue, the company argues that the worker failed to prove medical causation. It further argues that, even if legal and medical causation were proven, the worker has not proven that he is permanently and totally disabled. Because we resolve the issue of legal causation in favor of the company, we do not address the medical-causation or the extent-of-disability issue.

IV. Discussion

A. Overview of the Legal Causation Requirement

Alabama's workers' compensation law requires a worker seeking workers' compensation benefits for an injury to establish that the injury occurred in the course of his or her employment and that the injury arose out of that employment. Ex parte Trinity Indus., 680 So.2d at 265. To be entitled to compensation, a worker must establish both legal causation and medical causation. In a typical workers' compensation case involving an accidental injury caused, for example, by "being struck by a falling hammer . . . or slipping off a ladder," a worker "need only produce substantial evidence tending to show that the alleged `accident' occurred" in order to establish legal causation. Id. at 266 n. 3. However, in cases involving injuries not caused by "a sudden and [traumatic] external event," i.e., "nonaccidental" injuries, the test for legal causation requires more than just proof that there exists "a close spatial or temporal relationship between the injury and the place or time of the [worker's] performance of his or her job," id. at 269, because "`in Alabama the employment must be the source and cause of the accident.'" Id. at 268 (quoting Slimfold Mfg. Co. v. Martin, 417 So.2d 199, 201 (Ala.Civ.App.1981)).

This state has specifically rejected the "but-for" test for causation in workers' compensation cases. Martin, 417 So.2d at 202. The but-for test allows a worker to be compensated for an injury if that injury occurred while the worker was present at his place of employment and performing his duties.¹ As this court has explained: "The but-for test is clearly not the test for causation under [Alabama law]. Instead, the burden is on the [worker] to establish a definite causal connection between the work and the injury." Id.

As the company points out, the worker's argument that he proved that he was injured during working hours, while at work conducting business for the company and therefore established legal causation in this case is an oversimplification at best and is akin to arguing that but for his being at work, he would not have been injured. The but-for test has been rejected by Alabama courts. The worker must "establish a definite causal connection between the work and the injury." Martin, 417 So.2d at 202. To decide exactly what the worker is required to prove to establish legal causation, however, we must first decide whether the worker suffered an accidental injury or a nonaccidental injury.

After considering the only case in Alabama involving workers' compensation benefits for a death caused by lightning, cases from other jurisdictions, and two leading treatises, we have concluded that the injury sustained by the worker, although certainly sudden and traumatic, was not an "accidental" injury as that term is used in Alabama's workers' compensation law. Instead, the worker suffered a nonaccidental injury.

B. Legal Causation in Cases Involving Injury or Death by Lightning

The only Alabama case involving a worker's compensation claim arising from injury or death by lightning is American Fuel & Clay Products Co. v. Gilbert, 221 Ala. 44, 127 So. 540 (1930). Gilbert was struck by lightning while working inside a tipple, which is a structure from which coal is emptied into railroad cars. Gilbert, 221 Ala. at 46, 127 So. at 541. Lightning hit a sign atop the tipple, traveled down ungrounded guy wires, and entered the roof at a point above where Gilbert was engaged in his work. Id. The trial court awarded compensation on the basis of several findings. Specifically, the trial court found that the lightning had not been attracted by the sign or the guy wires, but that had the guy wires been grounded, the lightning would have followed the ground wire to the ground and not have gone through the roof. Id. at 45, 127 So. at 540. In addition, the trial court noted that the lightning, once it struck the tipple, had followed the guy wires and had gone through the roof to strike Gilbert, who was working beneath. Id. Perhaps the most important finding the trial court made, however, was that "`Gilbert's place of work did not subject him to any risk of injury or death from lightning which was substantially beyond the normal ordinary risk to which the average person is exposed in a place of like kind or in a building of like kind in the same general vicinity.'" Id. at 45, 127 So. at 541. The supreme court first affirmed the award of benefits,² explaining at length what one commentator has called the "increased-risk" doctrine,³ which, in recent years, has been embodied, with some modification, in our ...