Middleton v. Dan River, Inc.
| Citation | 617 F. Supp. 1206 |
| Decision Date | 15 August 1985 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 83-T-1129-N,83-T-1419-N and 84-T-007-N.,83-T-1160-N,83-T-1183-N |
| Parties | Marion F. MIDDLETON, Plaintiff, v. DAN RIVER, INC., Defendant. Eunice McCOY, Plaintiff, v. DAN RIVER, INC., Defendant. Clifton SMITH, Plaintiff, v. DAN RIVER, INC., Defendant. Lonnie HILLIARD, Plaintiff, v. DAN RIVER, INC., Defendant. Zack SCHOFIELD, Plaintiff, v. DAN RIVER, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Alabama |
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Rick Harris, Stephen R. Glassroth, L. Gilbert Kendrick, John B. Bush, Moore, Kendrick, Glassroth, Harris, Bush & White, Montgomery, Ala., for plaintiffs.
Richard A. Ball, Jr., C. Winston Sheehan, Jr., Ball, Ball, Duke & Matthews, Montgomery, Ala., Scott M. Phelps, Warren Lightfoot, Bradley, Arant, Rose & White, Birmingham, Ala., Michael Patrick Regan, Associate Gen. Counsel, Dan River, Inc., Law Dept., Danville, Va., for defendant.
These consolidated causes are claims for workers' compensation benefits under Alabama law. The court has diversity jurisdiction over these claims pursuant to 28 U.S. C.A. § 1332. Based on the evidence presented at a nonjury trial, the court finds that these claims are due to be granted and benefits awarded. The court also considers and grants one of the plaintiffs' counsel's motion for the court to enter judgment nunc pro tunc.
Plaintiffs Marion F. Middleton, Lonnie Hilliard, Zack Schofield, Eunice McCoy, and Clifton Smith, all former cotton textile workers, have brought these lawsuits pursuant to 1975 Ala.Code §§ 25-5-1 through 25-5-231 against Dan River Mills, Inc., their former employer. From 1955 until 1982, Dan River operated a cotton textile mill in Greenville, Alabama. Built around 1928, the mill first belonged to Alabama Mills, Inc., from whom Dan River acquired it. The plaintiff cotton workers worked in this mill for periods varying from fifteen to fifty-one years, beginning in one instance at the age of fourteen and in others at the age of sixteen; some were employed at the mill all their working lives. Only one finished high school; the others can write only their names and cannot read.
Throughout their years at the mill, the cotton workers seldom changed jobs. One worked mostly in the card room, two in the spinning room, and two in the weave room. While one worked for some time as a shift supervisor, the others stayed in manual positions. When their employment ended, the cotton workers earned between four and seven dollars an hour. In late 1982, Dan River closed the mill due to decreased demand for the corduroy cloth it produced.
The cotton workers all claim that they suffer lung disease caused by their employment at Dan River's Greenville mill. The issue for the court is whether the cotton workers have disabilities compensable under Alabama's workers' compensation law. The court must also determine whether four of the cotton workers may maintain their claims within the statute of limitations.
Alabama's courts have repeatedly stated, as recently expressed, that "the workmen's compensation laws are remedial in nature and are to be liberally construed and applied in order to effect their beneficent purposes." Hilyard Drilling Co., Inc. v. Janes, 462 So.2d 942, 943 (Ala.Civ. App.1985). Id. (citations omitted).
There are several categories of job-related injuries or diseases for which Alabama's law provides compensation. One such category of diseases is "occupational pneumoconiosis," the subject of Article 5, 1975 Ala.Code §§ 25-5-140 through 25-5-152. This category does not refer to any single disease or finite set of diseases, but rather encompasses the range of impairments "caused by inhalation of minute particles of dust over a period of time." § 25-5-140. See Wilkins v. West Point-Pepperell, Inc., 397 So.2d 115, 118 n. 3 (Ala.1981); Nason v. Jones, 278 Ala. 532, 179 So.2d 281, 284 (1965).1
§ 25-5-141 sets forth two requirements for compensation for occupational pneumoconiosis or dust-induced disease. First, the employee must show that the industry in which he or she works presents a "particular hazard" of the disease "in excess" of what employment in general presents. This is the requirement of legal causation. See Alatex, Inc. v. Couch, 449 So.2d 1254, 1257 (Ala.Civ.App.1984). Second, the employee must have a disease that "arose out of and in the course of the employment." This is the requirement of medical causation. Id. The court will consider each type of causation in turn.
Again, "to establish legal causation the employee must show that in the performance of her duties she was exposed to a danger or risk materially in excess of that to which people not so employed are exposed." Fordham v. Southern Phenix Textiles, Inc., 387 So.2d 204, 205 (Ala.Civ. App.), cert. denied, 387 So.2d 206 (Ala. 1980). Thus, the cotton workers here must show that work in the cotton textile industry exposed them to a greater risk of dust-induced disease than employment in general. All agree that work in this industry involves exposure to dust that is not present in other industries.2 The issue is whether cotton dust presents a materially greater risk of lung disease and, if so, how.
This issue is one to which doctors and other scientists have devoted considerable study and debate for a long time. Within the last fifteen years, federal agencies and state courts, including Alabama's, have also taken up the issue in establishing safety regulations and workers' compensation programs. There is now a vast body of literature, primary and secondary, medical and legal, concerning the effects of cotton dust. See, e.g., American Textile Manufacturers Institute, Inc. v. Donovan, 452 U.S. 490, 101 S.Ct. 2478, 69 L.Ed.2d 185 (1981).
The evidence before the court includes much of this literature, as well as the testimony of several experts. The court's findings rest on a review of all the extensive details in the evidence, although they only summarize these details. Also, while other courts and agencies have considered the issue of cotton dust's effects, their findings are not conclusive since the issue is one of fact. Similarly, while much of the evidence deals with the merits and deficiencies of various studies of cotton dust, the court's findings do not focus on the studies themselves and certainly do not rely on any single study.
The court considers the issue of cotton dust's effects in three parts: first, whether cotton dust can cause lung disease; and, if so, second, what in cotton dust causes such lung disease; and, third, what signs there are that cotton dust has caused such lung disease. The court considers these parts of the issue in turn.
The evidence reflects general agreement that cotton dust can impair the lungs of some people in some way. Soon after beginning to work in a cotton mill, cotton workers may experience chest tightness and breathing difficulty. For some, the experience may be so debilitating that they must change jobs; others are able to keep working with discomfort. The evidence is that those cotton workers who stop being exposed to cotton dust soon after first experiencing chest tightness and breathing difficulty find that this trouble stops too.
There is also evidence that cotton workers who remain exposed to cotton dust over several years may develop further trouble that does not go away even after exposure to cotton dust stops. Along with the same chest tightness and breathing difficulty, such cotton workers, according to the evidence, suffer permanent damage to their lungs.3
This evidence of permanent lung disease from exposure to cotton dust has existed for some time. Recently, some experts have criticized the way in which this evidence was gathered. In addition, some recent studies have cast doubt on cotton dust's permanent effects, though not disproving them. However, experts have also criticized these recent studies for failing to account for changed conditions in cotton mills.
The nature of the evidence would suggest that there may never be a definitive medical determination of whether cotton dust can cause permanent lung disease. However, the cotton workers here need not establish the particular hazard of cotton dust definitively. See Dan River Mills, Inc. v. Foshee, 365 So.2d 1232, 1237 (Ala. Civ.App.1979). In this case, the court upheld an award of workers' compensation benefits for exposure to cotton dust, saying that Id. Along these same lines, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has said when setting safety levels for cotton dust that "standards cannot be postponed because definitive medical or scientific evidence is not currently available." 43 Fed.Reg. 27,351.
Along these lines, the court finds that the cotton workers have proved by a preponderance of the evidence that exposure to cotton dust presents a particular hazard of lung disease in excess of employment in general. The court finds that cotton dust can cause permanent lung disease, as well as temporary impairment of breathing. Lung disease caused by exposure to cotton dust is thus an occupational pneumoconiosis, compensable according to 1975 Ala. Code § 25-5-141.
Again, the second part of the issue before the court is what it is about cotton dust that can cause lung disease. There appears to be some element in the cotton plant that, in particles too small...
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