Gattis v. NTN-Bower Corp.

• Decision Date: 30 April 1993
• Docket Number: NTN-BOWER
• Citation: 627 So.2d 437
• Parties: Rickey Gene GATTIS v.CORPORATION. 2910583.
• Court: Alabama Court of Civil Appeals

Page 437

627 So.2d 437

Rickey Gene GATTIS v. NTN-BOWER CORPORATION.

2910583.

Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama.

April 30, 1993.

Rehearing Denied June 4, 1993.

Certiorari Denied Aug. 27, 1993

Alabama Supreme Court 1921424.

James Tony Glenn of Green, Wood, Howell & Glenn, Russellville, for appellant.

Vernon L. Wells II and David B. Walston of Walston, Stabler, Wells, Anderson & Bains, Birmingham, for appellee.

ROBERTSON, Presiding Judge.

This is a workmen's compensation case, in which the employee, Rickey Gene Gattis, appeals from a summary judgment entered in favor of the employer, NTN-Bower Corporation (NTN-Bower).

The uncontested facts reveal that Gattis began working for NTN-Bower at its plant in Hamilton, Alabama, in 1978. Sometime before 1986, he assumed a job in an area of the plant where he was exposed to airborne chemicals and lubricants. In March 1986, Gattis experienced an episode of choking spasms and breathing difficulties while at work. He reported the incident to his foreman and sought medical treatment. At that time, the treating physician diagnosed his condition as esophageal spasms caused by stomach ulcers, and Gattis returned to work after a day's absence. Following this initial episode, Gattis continued to experience choking spasms periodically. In 1987, a rash began to appear on Gattis's arms and legs. The rash would appear while Gattis was at the plant, and at times when he was at home. Gattis's symptoms were soon accompanied by painful stomach inflammations, swelling of the extremities, and stiffness of the joints. His condition persisted during the ensuing months; however, examining physicians were unable to diagnose his problem with any specificity. Due to his deteriorating health, Gattis took a leave of absence from NTN-Bower on November 2, 1987.

Gattis resumed work at NTN-Bower's plant on February 15, 1988. However, his condition worsened, and, according to Gattis, he began to experience weakness in addition to his previous symptoms. Overcome by his physical problems, Gattis left the plant on April 14, 1988, the last date on which he worked for NTN-Bower. In June 1988, Gattis's wife went to the plant and informed the company's personnel director that she believed Gattis's health problems were attributable to his employment. She requested that NTN-Bower send Gattis to a company doctor for treatment. The personnel director, however, denied the request, asserting that it was the company's position that Gattis's condition was unrelated to his work.

Gattis continued to seek a diagnosis for his condition. In the summer of 1989, following a series of medical examinations and tests, physicians determined that Gattis was suffering from poisoning due to chemical exposure. The tests revealed a high concentration of a particular toxic chemical in Gattis's muscles and in a number of his organs.

On January 4, 1990, Gattis filed a complaint for workmen's compensation benefits, wherein he alleged that he had "suffered injury and damage" as a result of his exposure to chemicals in the course of his employment with NTN-Bower. NTN-Bower answered and subsequently filed a motion for summary judgment, raising the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense.

In his complaint, and at the hearing on NTN-Bower's motion, Gattis asserted that he was seeking recovery under the "accident" provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act and disavowed any reliance on the "occupational disease" provisions of the act. After considering the arguments of counsel, together with a deposition and affidavit filed by Gattis, the trial court entered a summary judgment for NTN-Bower. The trial court found that Gattis's claim under the "accident" provisions of the act was barred by the statute of limitations provided by § 25-5-80, Code 1975, because his complaint was not filed within two years of March 1986, the date on which the symptoms of his condition first became manifest. In addition, the trial court found that Gattis had failed to provide NTN-Bower with timely notice of the accident, as required by § 25-5-78, Code 1975. The trial court ruled alternatively that if Gattis's claim was to be considered under the "occupational disease" provisions of the act, it would nonetheless be barred by the one-year statute of limitations provided by § 25-5-117, Code 1975.

Gattis filed a motion for new trial or, in the alternative, to alter, amend, or vacate the trial court's judgment. The motion was denied. Gattis appeals, contending that his complaint and notice were timely and that, therefore, summary judgment was improper.

In reviewing the disposition of a motion for summary judgment, we use the same standard as the trial court in determining whether the evidence made out a genuine issue of material fact and whether the moving party was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Graveman v. Wind Drift Owners' Ass'n, Inc., 607 So.2d 199 (Ala.1992).

Section 25-5-80, Code 1975, sets forth a two-year statute of limitations for initiating an action for injuries resulting from on-the-job accidents, and, at the time of the alleged injury and the filing of this action, provided in pertinent part as follows:

"In case of a personal injury, all claims for compensation under this article and article 2 of this chapter shall be forever barred ... unless within two years after the accident one of the parties shall have filed a verified complaint as provided in section 25-5-88."

Gattis contends that his last exposure to chemicals at NTN-Bower's plant should be considered an "accident" for purposes of the Workmen's Compensation Act and that the two-year statute of limitations in § 25-5-80 began to run from the date of last exposure which he alleges to be April 14, 1988. Therefore, he maintains, his complaint was timely filed. The trial court ruled, however, that under the act, the date of an accident "is the date the symptoms of the injury first become manifest." The trial court found that Gattis, by his own testimony, first experienced the symptoms of his debilitating condition in March 1986 and that, therefore, his action was time-barred when he filed his complaint.

In support of the trial court's judgment, NTN-Bower argues that if the legislature had intended the limitation period of § 25-5-80 to run from the "date of last exposure," it could have so provided, as it did in the statute of limitations for occupational diseases found at § 25-5-117, Code 1975. That Code section provides that the limitations period for occupational diseases begins to run from the date of "injury," which it expressly defines as the date the employee was last exposed to the causative agent:

"The date of the injury shall mean, for all purposes of this article, the date of the last exposure to the hazards of the disease in the employment of the employer in whose employment the employee was last exposed to the hazards of the disease."

Section 25-5-117 (emphasis added). There is no such "last exposure" provision in § 25-5-80. Accordingly, NTN-Bower argues that the legislature must have intended that the date of an "accident" (as found in § 25-5-80) be the date the debilitating condition first becomes symptomatic after exposure to "the causative agent."

As further support for the trial court's judgment, NTN-Bower directs our attention to Blackmon v. R.L. Zeigler Co., 390 So.2d 628 (Ala.Civ.App.), cert. denied, 390 So.2d 635 (Ala.1980), where the reviewing court held that, for purposes of § 25-5-80, the date of the employee's "accident" was the date on which his back injury first became symptomatic, rather than the date on which the disability for which he sought recovery was fully realized. The court reasoned that its holding was compelled by the definition of "accident" at § 25-5-1(8), Code 1975, which, it said, clearly contemplates "a reasonably definite period of time during which the injury manifests itself." 390 So.2d at 631.

The court in Blackmon relied on the distinction between "accident" and "disability" as enunciated in Davis v. Standard Oil Co. of Kentucky, 261 Ala. 410, 415, 74 So.2d 625, 629-30 (1954), where our supreme court said:

"It appears that the courts have uniformly held that the time for filing a suit begins to run from the time of the happening or occurrence which later produced disability and not from the time a compensable injury or disability becomes apparent, where the act provides that the period of limitations runs from the date of the accident, as distinguished from the time of disability or other date."

We are compelled to point out, however, that the decisions in Davis and Blackmon, and in cases following their rationale (see, e.g., City of Florence v. Gallien, 484 So.2d 1095 (Ala.Civ.App.1986)), were premised on a narrow definition of "accident," which rigidly adhered to the requirement that an accident be a sudden event. Such a requirement has been supplanted in case law. In Ex parte Harris, 590 So.2d 285 (Ala.1991), our supreme court explicitly rejected the aspect of "suddenness" in defining "accident," stating that a definition that looks to the event causing the injury, and not the result thereof, is no longer valid: "if the job caused the injury, then the injury is an accident within the intent of the Act." Harris at 286.

Harris was the articulation of a well-established tendency by our courts to recognize longer and longer periods as sufficiently identifiable "times of accident." In Kane v. South Central Bell Telephone Co., 368 So.2d 3 (Ala.1979), our supreme court held that an employee's heart attack brought on by gradual inhalation of paint fumes over a two-day period constituted an "accident" as that term is used in the Workmen's Compensation Act. In B.F. Goodrich Co. v. Martin, 47 Ala.App. 244, 253 So.2d 37 (Ala.Civ.App.), cert. denied, 287 Ala. 726, 253 So.2d 45 (1971), this court held that an employee...