Grimes v. Leon County School Bd.

• Decision Date: 15 December 1987
• Docket Number: No. BN-95,BN-95
• Citation: 12 Fla. L. Weekly 2852,518 So.2d 327
• Parties: 44 Ed. Law Rep. 891, 12 Fla. L. Weekly 2852 Thelma J. GRIMES, Appellant, v. LEON COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD and Royal Indemnity Company, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 327

518 So.2d 327

44 Ed. Law Rep. 891, 12 Fla. L. Weekly 2852

Thelma J. GRIMES, Appellant, v. LEON COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD and Royal Indemnity Company, Appellees.

No. BN-95.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

Dec. 15, 1987.

Richard M. Powers, of Richard M. Powers, P.A., Tallahassee, for appellant.

David A. McCranie, of Karl, McConnaughhay, Roland, Maida & Beal, P.A., Tallahassee, for appellees.

PER CURIAM.

The appellant in this workers' compensation case appeals an order of the deputy commissioner denying her claim for medical and temporary total disability benefits on the basis that the injury did not arise out of her employment. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.

Claimant, Thelma Grimes, was afflicted with polio as a child, and is required to wear a full brace on her right leg at all times. The brace contains a lock at the knee joint, which must be manually locked each time claimant stands. Claimant has worked for the appellee for twenty-one years, with appellee's knowledge of her handicap. On August 8, 1985, claimant was meeting with a supply salesman, who requested to see one of her files. When she arose from her desk to retrieve the file, she manually locked the brace as usual. The brace, however, gave way, causing claimant to fall and fracture her left ankle. Claimant testified at the hearing that her working conditions were very crowded, much more so than her home, and that she was required to constantly get up and down from her desk.

I.

A compensable injury under the Florida workers' compensation statute must "arise out of" employment. §§ 440.02(1) and (14), 440.09, Fla.Stat. (1985). An accidental fall caused by a so-called preexisting condition which results in injury to a worker does not "arise out of" employment, it has been held, unless the accident relates to the employment in some way in the sense that the employment contributes to the risk or aggravates the injury. Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. McCook, 355 So.2d 1166 (Fla.1977); Bison Co. v. Shubert, 494 So.2d 253 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986); House v. Preferred Auto Leasing, 476 So.2d 1337 (Fla. 1st DCA 1985); Market Food Distributors, Inc. v. Levenson, 383 So.2d 726 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980). In Medeiros v. Residential Communities of America, 481 So.2d 92, 93 (Fla. 1st DCA 1986), we stated that such an injury "arises out of" employment "when the employment necessarily exposes the claimant to conditions that substantially contribute to the risk of injury, conditions which the claimant would not normally encounter during his nonemployment life."

The facts of the instant case are, we believe, similar to those in Cheney v. F.E.C. News Distribution Co., 382 So.2d 1291 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980), in which we reversed the deputy commissioner's finding that claimant's injury did not arise out of employment. In Cheney, the claimant suffered from a preexisting injury which caused headaches and dizziness. While working in a job that required him to bend, turn, and twist, claimant became dizzy, fell and injured his head. In the instant case, claimant's job required her to constantly get up and down from her desk, and to work in an area which was considerably more crowded than her home environment. As in Cheney, it is less likely that claimant would have fallen at home where she could have better and more selectively controlled her positional changes. As in Cheney, claimant could have also controlled the amount of her activities at home, while she could not do so at work. We hold that claimant's employment exposed her to conditions which substantially contributed to the risk of her injury, and that she suffered a compensable injury arising out of and in the course of her employment within the meaning of that term as used in chapter 440.

II.

Our conclusion that this case is more like Cheney than other cases disallowing compensability for idiopathic falls is a close call, and was made extremely difficult by the diverse decisions on this issue. This case is subject to the increased-hazard doctrine, which holds that an injury resulting from risks or conditions solely personal to the claimant does not meet the statutory definition of injury in section 440.01(14) requiring it to be caused "by accident arising out of and in the course of employment," unless the employment contributes to the risk or aggravates the injury. Difficulties inherent in the application of this approach have left the decisional law in a state of confusion with inconsistent results. Such inconsistency has resulted in discriminatory application of the workers' compensation statute and is simply bad law. For this reason, it is time to reexamine the origin and logic of the increased-hazard doctrine as applied to idiopathic falls.

Florida has not always followed the increased-hazard doctrine. The first case to address the issue, Protectu Awning Shutter Co. v. Cline, 154 Fla. 30, 16 So.2d 342 (1944), involved a fall caused by a fainting spell attributable to a preexisting heart condition in which the claimant struck his head against the concrete floor, causing a skull fracture resulting in death. The court held that the injury was caused by a fall during the course of employment, and regardless of whether the fall itself was attributable to an idiopathic condition, the injury was compensable, stating:

The purpose of the act is to shoulder on industry the expense incident to the hazards of industry; to lift from the public the burden to support those incapacitated by industry and to ultimately pass on to the consumers of the products of industry such expense. Our act affords no relief for disease of physical ailment not produced by industry. The act removes all question of negligence, assumption of risk or wrong-doing on the part of the employer. To our mind what impels us to uphold this judgment, primarily, is that the injury which actually produced death was the fracture.

The fact that Cline suffered from heart disease which, [sic] no doubt caused him to fall, does not preclude recovery. The chances are he might have fallen and sustained a fatal injury in his own home, yet, it is less likely had he remained in the quiet of his own home, for without the physical exertion encountered in his work by a man of his age and physical condition, the chances of his falling were less likely. Had Cline fallen onto a piece of machinery and sustained the injury an award would hardly be questioned. The fact that he chanced to fall on the floor and unfortunately lost his life should not preclude an award.... The Compensation Law is based primarily on social responsibility of one to another. It surely cannot be said that its benefits should be extended in a less degree to those less fortunate than the average worker.

16 So.2d at 343 (emphasis added).

The court in Protectu, as reflected in the above quotation, looked primarily to the fall onto the floor as the cause of the injury, rather than focusing on the precipitating cause of the fall--claimant's preexisting heart condition. This construction of the statute is simple, straightforward, and easy to apply in a consistent and nondiscriminatory fashion. Unfortunately, later opinions seized upon the fact that Protectu's fall was upon a concrete floor, and opined that the hardness of the floor increased the hazard of employment, thereby making the claim compensable. See Foxworth v. Florida Industrial Commission, 86 So.2d 147, 151 (Fla.1955), stating:

This decision [Protectu Awning Shutter Co. v. Cline ] is justified on the basis that the hardness of the floor was an increased hazard attributable to the employment, but that case represents the outer limits of the doctrine. To extend the rule further would be to eradicate completely the statutory requirement that the injury must be one arising out of the employment. The employment in some manner must contribute an increased hazard peculiar to the employment.

In Foxworth, the court for the first time explicitly aligned itself with those jurisdictions holding that when a worker's fall may be characterized as idiopathic, i.e., caused by a condition personal to claimant, the claim will not be compensable unless the employment condition contributed to the risk of or aggravated the injury. In so doing, the court necessarily departed from its prior construction of the statute and engrafted additional conditions onto the statutory definition of injury and the phrase "arising out of" in an apparent effort to serve a newly perceived policy interest in limiting the act's coverage. Since that decision, the application of this limiting notion in diverse factual contexts has led to a lack of uniformity in results. See Lovett v. Gore Newspapers Co., 419 So.2d 306 (Fla.1982) (claimant, injured by a fall on a linoleum-covered concrete floor, permitted recovery, despite the claimant's preexisting condition of scoliosis, because of the employer's requirement that she perform additional work); Honeywell, Inc. v. Scully, 289 So.2d 393 (Fla.1974) (injuries resulting from a fall, caused in turn by a fainting spell, held to be noncompensable because the hazard of employment did not aggravate the injuries); Southern Convalescent Home v. Wilson, 285 So.2d 404 (Fla.1973) (injuries suffered by claimant following fall caused by epilepsy arose from a risk or condition personal to him, and did not arise out of his employment); Federal Electric Corp. v. Best, 274 So.2d 886 (Fla.1973) (death benefits denied following the employee's skull fracture, caused as a result of the employee's epileptic seizure); Medeiros v. Residential Community of America, 481 So.2d 92 (injuries suffered during course of employment when claimant fell on a stairway while delivering a package, held noncompensable because the cause of the fall was solely attributable to her personal condition and employment conditions did not increase the risk of injury); House v. Preferred Auto Leasing, 476 So.2d 1337 (aggravation to claimant's...