McDonald v. Time-DC, Inc.
| Decision Date | 16 May 1989 |
| Docket Number | INC,No. 63481,TIME-D,63481 |
| Citation | 773 P.2d 1252,1989 OK 76 |
| Parties | Melvin McDONALD, Petitioner, v., Liberty Mutual Insurance and The Workers' Compensation Court, Respondents. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Timothy M. White, Byron D. Todd, Tulsa, for petitioner.
Michael W. McGivern, McGivern, Scott, Gilliard & McGivern, Tulsa, for respondents.
The dispositive issue presented for our review is whether a compensation claim for a work-related injury sustained in a car collision is barred because it was not filed within one year after the date of the accident. We answer in the affirmative.
Melvin McDonald [worker] was injured on October 7, 1977 in an on-the-job automobile accident while working for Time-DC, Incorporated. The same day the worker reported the accident to his company. Three days later he went to a hospital emergency room and received a prescription for muscle relaxants. Some five weeks after the accident he noticed a "coldness" in his feet. He met with a doctor about the condition which persisted throughout 1978.
The worker was hospitalized on January 2, 1979 and diagnosed as suffering from a loss of blood circulation below both knees. It is at this time, he testified, that he first realized the causal link between the car accident and the injury to his circulatory system.
The worker filed a compensation claim on March 6, 1979, alleging that he suffered permanent injuries from the October 1977 accident. The trial judge concluded the claim was barred by the applicable compensation law's limitation, because it was filed more than one year after the accident. 85 O.S.1971 § 43. 1 A three-judge review panel affirmed the denial of compensation. The Court of Appeals vacated the order, holding that in a "single-event injury" 2 the one-year limitation period of § 43 does not begin to run until a claimant is aware or should be aware of the full extent of his work-related injury. 3
We grant certiorari to revisit the question when statutory time to file a workers' compensation claim for a single-event injury begins to run.
THE STATUTORY TIME TO FILE A WORKERS' COMPENSATION CLAIM FOR
The worker argues the limitation period did not begin to run until he "discovered" the full extent of his injury. 4 We must recede from this view.
In Stillwater Floral Company v. Murray, 5 a single-event injury case, this court held that the terms of 85 O.S.1961 § 43 () barred a worker's compensation claim because it was not filed within one year after an injury. There, we said an injury is inflicted at the time of the accident, not when its full extent is first noted. 6 More specifically, the court's construction of the compensation law was that it
[Emphasis added.] 7
Stillwater Floral does not stand alone on this point; we have repeatedly rejected the argument that the one-year limitation begins to run when the disability occasioned by an accidental injury becomes fully apparent. 8
In support of his "awareness" argument, the worker relies on Munsingwear, Inc. v. Tullis, a cumulative-effect injury case, where we held the limitation period begins to run when the worker is aware, or should be aware, of some defect that is causally connected with the job. 9 There we observed:
"Stillwater Floral Company v. Murray ... suggests the injury need not be one capable of full medical evaluation, but an injury with the accident sufficient for the workman to be aware, or should be aware, of some defect or some ill effect, produced thereby." [Emphasis added.] 10
The worker misinterprets the teaching of Munsingwear. Our ruling in that case is rested on the language of § 43 then in effect 11 and on the character of the worker's injury. Munsingwear was not intended to be a blank endorsement of an awareness doctrine similar to the "discovery rule", 12 which applies in general civil litigation. 13 Its teaching was but an adaptation of the Stillwater Floral principle that the § 43 one-year limitation begins to run at the time of the accidental injury which is known or should have been known, not from the time the full extent of the worker's disability becomes manifest.
Because Stillwater Floral defines "injury" by reference to the "time of the accident," 14 it was necessary in Munsingwear to settle on the exact point in time when repeated exposure to noxious smoke will culminate in an accident. The essence of the Munsingwear reasoning is that the cumulative effect of repeated microtrauma or exposure to hazardous conditions does not become an "accident" until a worker is aware, or should be aware, of a "defect" that is causally connected with his job. This conclusion accommodates the peculiar characteristic of a cumulative-effect injury--a phenomenon that occurs imperceptibly and unexpectedly. 15 Conversely, where there is a single event (like an automobile accident), the injurious occurrence itself is far from latent. 16 Some ill effect, however trivial, will be or should be recognizable immediately. 17
When the worker knows that a single-event industrial accident has taken place, he (or she) is charged with awareness of its occurrence. This, in turn, raises legal awareness of compensable injury, present or potential. Awareness of potential injury, much like that of immediate harm, imposes a duty upon the worker to protect his rights by filing a timely claim.
Properly analyzed, Stillwater Floral and Munsingwear apply the same test under different factual scenarios. The former teaches the test's proper application where a worker is injured in a single, finite accident. By the latter the same rule is refitted for use limited to cumulative-effect injuries. 18
Although § 43 has been amended three times since Stillwater Floral, our lawmaking body has not altered the statute's substantive language insofar as it regulates the time to bring claims for single-event injuries. 19 The legislature must hence be deemed to have ratified our priorinterpretation of § 43. 20
In sum, the language of § 43 clearly militates against a construction that would allow engrafting a tort-like discovery rule. Rather, the time to file a claim for a single-event injury runs from the time the worker is charged with legal awareness of the present or potential ill effect, not from the onset or manifestation of disability or impairment. Our current statutory scheme makes a similar rule applicable to claimants who seek compensation for most cumulative-effect injuries. 21 Only for asbestosis, silicosis or exposure to nuclear radiation does the limitation period now in effect begin to run from the date of manifestation. 85 O.S.Supp.1986 § 43(A). The cited enactment's restriction operates as an explicit exception from the general regime for application to some forms of cumulative-effect injuries. The legislative enumeration of compensable harms singled out from others clearly prohibits a judicial extension of similar exceptions both to single-event or to other kinds of cumulative-effect injuries, regardless of apparent hardship or inconvenience. 22
A DICHOTOMOUS DIVISION OF CLAIMANTS BASED ON THE CHARACTER
OF INJURY SUSTAINED IN AN INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENT RESTS ON
LEGITIMATE STATE INTERESTS AND DOES NOT OFFEND
Single-event and cumulative-effect injuries bear distinctive characteristics which require different treatment. Recognition of these separate classes is necessary for fair application of § 43's one-year (now two-year) limitation. It is hence rationally related to legitimate state interests in orderly adjudication of claims and in judicial economy. There is here no violation of the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. 23
THE WORKER'S COMPENSATION CLAIM IS BARRED FOR FAILURE TO
FILE A PROCEEDING WITHIN ONE YEAR AFTER THE DATE
The worker suffered injuries in an automobile collision. His claim is based on a single-event injury and, hence, can escape legislative extinguishment only if a proceeding was brought within one year (now a two-year interval) of the date the accident occurred. This is the very date the worker first became charged with legal awareness of some defect, or ill effect, from the job-related occurrence. His lack of knowledge--at that point in time--of the full extent of his disability is legally irrelevant.
Because the record clearly demonstrates the worker was immediately aware of his October 1977 accident, he was also legally aware at that time of present or potential harm. Consequently, the worker had a duty to file his claim within one year of that date. His March 1979 claim, filed more than one year after the accident's occurrence, is barred by § 43.
CERTIORARI IS GRANTED, THE COURT OF APPEALS' OPINION IS VACATED AND THE ORDER OF THE REVIEW PANEL OF THE WORKERS' COMPENSATION COURT IS SUSTAINED.
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