Henry v. A. C. Lawrence Leather Co., 25
| Decision Date | 19 September 1951 |
| Docket Number | No. 25,25 |
| Citation | 66 S.E.2d 693,234 N.C. 126 |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
| Parties | HENRY, v. A. C. LAWRENCE LEATHER CO. et al. |
Frank D. Ferguson, Jr., Waynesville, for plaintiff-appellee.
Morgan & Ward and Glenn W. Brown, Waynesville, for defendant-appellants.
The underlying purpose of our Workmen's Compensation Act, G.S. Chap. 97, is to provide compensation for workmen who suffer disability by accident arising out of and in the course of their employment. The Act as originally adopted defined 'injury' for which compensation is to be allowed to 'mean only injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment, and shall not include a disease in any form, except where it results naturally and unavoidably from the accident.' G.S. § 97-2(f). However, it soon became apparent that any scheme or plan for the payment of compensation to disabled employees should include those diseases or abnormal conditions of human beings the causative origin of which is occupational in nature. To meet this need the Legislature adopted Chap. 123, P.L. 1935, now G.S. § 97-52 and 53. In this amendatory Act it designated the diseases and conditions which 'shall be deemed to be occupational diseases within the meaning of this article', G.S. § 97-53, and broadened or extended the meaning of the word 'accident' as used in the original Act so as to include a disablement or death resulting from an occupational disease described in G.S. §§ 97-53, 97-52. It provides that 'The word 'accident,' as used in the Workmen's Compensation Act, shall not be construed to mean a series of events in employment, of a similar or like nature, occurring regularly, continuously or at frequent intervals in the course of such employment, over extended periods of time * * * and disease attributable to such causes shall be compensable only if culminating in an occupational disease mentioned in and compensable under this article ' That is to say, when stated in a positive rather than a negative form, disablement or death resulting from any such 'series of events' in employment shall be treated as the happening of an injury by accident compensable under the Act when and only when such series of events culminates in one of the occupational diseases mentioned in G.S. § 97-53. An occupational disease attributable to such causes must be treated as an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of employment, and compensation must be awarded for any resulting disablement.
Among those diseases or conditions which are classified as occupational and compensable is 'tenosynovitis, caused by trauma in employment.' G.S. § 97-53(21).
The claimant is now suffering from tenosynovitis in both elbows. This condition is attributable to 'a series of events in employment, of a similar or like nature, occurring regularly, continuously or at frequent intervals in the course of such employment.' The 'series of events' was the frequent pronation of the hands in dipping and loading the crops which produced a repeated strain or stress upon the extensor tendons of plaintiff's arms, causing inflammation of the tendons and their protective sheaths. The Commission so found and the findings are fully supported by the evidence.
As we read the record, the defendants do not seriously challenge these facts. They do, however, stressfully contend that the facts so found and the evidence on which they are based do not warrant or support the finding or conclusion that claimant's condition, technically known as tenosynovitis, was caused by trauma in his employment. This is the battleground of the controversy.
The question thus posed for decision is to be resolved by a determination of the meaning of three terms: 'tenosynovitis', 'trauma', and 'occupational disease', as those terms are used in the statute.
The Legislature, in adopting Chap. 123, P.L.1935, had under consideration diseases and morbid conditions of the human body. In designating those diseases and conditions which are to be deemed occupational in origin and compensable under the Act, it, for the most part, used technical terms. Anthrax, bursitis, asbestosis, silicosis, nystagmus, synovitis, and tenosynovitis are technical words. In construing the Act we must accord them their technical connotation.
'So far as the interpretation of a statute is concerned, courts have said that there are four kinds of terms: Common, technical, legal, and trade or commercial.' Southerland, Stat.Const., 3rd ed., Vol. 2, 424. And 'in the absence of a legislative intent to the contrary, technical terms or terms of art when used in a statute are presumed to have been used with their technical meaning.' id., 437; Hawley v. Diller, 178 U.S. 476, 20 S.Ct. 986, 44 L.Ed. 1157; State v. Domanski, 57 R.I. 500, 190 A. 854; Passaic Nat. Bank & Trust Co. v. Eelman, 116 N.J.L. 279, 183 A. 677; St. Louis, I. M. & S. Ry. Co. v. State, 102 Ark. 205, 143 S.W. 913.
Synovitis, G.S. § 97-53(20), is the inflammation of a synovial membrane and tenosynovitis or tendosynovitis is the inflammation of a synovial membrane which forms the protective sheath that encloses the tendon. It is sometimes used to denote the inflammation of both the sheath and the tendon. Webster, New Int.Dic., 2d ed.; Dorland, Am.Illus.Med.Dic., 21st ed.; Reed & Emerson, The Relation between Injury and Disease, p. 500; Maloy, Med.Dic. for Lawyers, 2d ed.; Gelber, Medico-Legal Text on Traumatic Injuries, p. 117.
The causative origin of tenosynovitis is either infection (usually either gonorrheal or tubercular) or trauma, and traumatic synovitis is caused by (1) contusion of a joint, (2) spraining or twisting of a joint, (3) overuse of a joint, or (4) stretching of tendons and tendon sheaths by repeated overflexion or overextension. Gelber, Medico-Legal Text on Traumatic Injuries, 117. 'Noninfectious tendosynovitis follows blows which contuse tendons themselves and severe strains which overstretch them.' One type of noninfectious tenosynovitis is 'that type which follows long-continued, rapidly repeated, movements which create almost continuous overactivity of certain tendons.' Reed & Emerson, Relation between Injury and Disease, 502.
'Chronic strains may occur when a worker performs operations with parts of his body that require a repetition of movements over long hours * * * Rapid...
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