Noble v. Lamoni Products

• Decision Date: 23 February 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-148,93-148
• Citation: 512 N.W.2d 290
• Parties: Judith NOBLE, Appellant, v. LAMONI PRODUCTS and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 290

512 N.W.2d 290

Judith NOBLE, Appellant, v. LAMONI PRODUCTS and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Appellees.

No. 93-148.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 23, 1994.

Steven C. Jayne, Des Moines, for appellant.

Joseph A. Happe of Jones, Hoffmann, Huber, Kelley, Book & Cortese, Des Moines, for appellees.

Considered by HARRIS, P.J., and LAVORATO, NEUMAN, SNELL, and ANDREASEN, JJ.

NEUMAN, Justice.

This appeal by an injured worker challenges the industrial commissioner's finding that carpal tunnel syndrome is an occupational injury, not an occupational disease, and therefore compensable under Iowa Code chapter 85 (1991). On judicial review, the district court upheld the commissioner's ruling. We affirm.

The facts are not disputed. Appellant Judith Noble began working for appellee Lamoni Products in 1983. In 1986 she was transferred from quality control to the production line, building cross-body electrical harnesses for automobiles. Her duties entailed holding a collection of wires known as the "tail" with one hand, and with the other hand flipping a roll of tape over and under the wires to create a continuous roll. The task required repeated flexion and extension of her wrists. Excluding breaks and lunch, she completed one "tail" every seventy seconds during her eight-hour work day.

After three to four weeks on the job, Noble reported numbness and a loss of feeling in her hands. Her supervisor then assigned her to a job "blocking ripcords." This involved inserting a terminal into a connector with a "push, click, tug" motion to ensure that the connector was seated properly. The motion was repeated approximately 3500 times per day. Again Noble reported numbness, pain, and gradual loss of strength in her hands.

In December 1986, Noble told her doctor about the numbness and pain she was experiencing in her hands. He referred her to a specialist who diagnosed her condition as "overuse syndrome" and recommended that the condition would improve if she rotated to different positions within the plant. She remained, however, at her job blocking ripcords.

On July 2, 1987, Noble and about twenty other employees were laid off their jobs at Lamoni. Because the numbness in her hands persisted after the layoff, she was referred to yet another doctor who diagnosed her condition as bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome. ^{1 1} He recommended surgery. The doctor also determined that the carpal tunnel syndrome was work-related and that if Noble continued blocking ripcords, a one-in-four chance existed that her symptoms would recur. Noble underwent surgery for decompression of the right carpal and ulnar tunnels in October 1987, and the left carpal tunnel in December 1987. Although she was released to return to work in January 1988, no position was extended to her. The plant closed later that year.

Noble filed an arbitration petition with the Iowa industrial commissioner, alleging that her bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome was an occupational disease entitling her to compensation under Iowa Code chapter 85A. Following hearing, a deputy found the evidence insufficient to sustain Noble's claim of occupational disease but concluded that she had suffered a work-related injury. The deputy awarded Noble permanent partial disability benefits for injuries to both hands (resulting in a four percent functional impairment to the body as a whole) in accordance with Iowa Code section 85.34(2)(s).

Noble appealed to the industrial commissioner, who sustained the deputy's order. Rejecting Noble's argument that the syndrome was a disease process, the commissioner found under this record that Noble suffered a series of microtraumas to her hands over time. Such a traumatic cumulative injury, he concluded, is compensable under Iowa Code chapter 85, not 85A. The district court affirmed on judicial review and this appeal followed.

I. Our review is for the correction of errors at law. Suluki v. Employment Appeal Bd., 503 N.W.2d 402, 404 (Iowa 1993). The industrial commissioner's interpretation of the workers' compensation statutes is entitled to deference, but the final interpretation of the law rests with this court. Teel v. McCord, 394 N.W.2d 405, 407 (Iowa 1986). Our task is to determine whether the district court, acting in its appellate capacity in these judicial review proceedings, applied the law correctly. Office of Consumer Advocate v. Iowa State Commerce Comm'n, 465 N.W.2d 280, 281 (Iowa 1991).

II. Iowa Code chapter 85, the Workers' Compensation Act, authorizes compensation to employees who sustain personal injury arising out of their employment. See Iowa Code § 85.3(1). The act prescribes coverage for bodily injury, health impairment, or disease resulting from trauma-induced injury. Almquist v. Shenandoah Nurseries, 218 Iowa 724, 732, 254 N.W. 35, 39 (1934); Iowa Code § 85.61(4)(b). Prior to 1947, an employee suffering from an occupational disease was not entitled to statutory relief. Almquist, 218 Iowa at 731, 254 N.W. at 38. In 1947, however, the legislature enacted the Occupational Disease Law, Iowa Code ch. 85A, to compensate victims of disease resulting from the nature of employment rather than from traumatic injury. See generally Larry L. Shepler, Occupational Disease Claims, 30 Drake L.Rev. 841, 841-42 (1980-81).

Until 1973, the Occupational Disease Law limited its coverage to a schedule of specific diseases. Of the seventeen enumerated conditions, eight were types of poisoning; two involved skin diseases from chemical reactions; two were diseases resulting from handling infected animals and their carcasses; two involved exposure to radiant energy and radioactive materials; and one involved exposure to chemical dust. See Iowa Code § 85A.9 (1973). Recovery was also permitted for "bursitis, synovitis or tenosynovitis" resulting from "any process or occupation involving continued or repeated pressure on the parts affected." Id. ²

The legislature repealed the disease schedule in 1973. 1973 Iowa Acts ch. 144, § 30. Left remaining was the general definition of occupational disease which, by its terms, limits the law's application to

only those diseases which arise out of and in the course of the employee's employment. Such diseases shall have a direct causal connection with the employment and must have followed as a natural incident thereto from injurious exposure occasioned by the nature of the employment. Such disease must be incidental to the character of the business, occupation or process in which the employee was employed and not independent of the employment. Such disease need not have been foreseen or expected but after its contraction it must appear to have had its origin in a risk connected with the employment and to have resulted from that source as an incident and rational consequence. A disease which follows from a hazard to which an employee has or would have been equally exposed outside of said occupation is not compensable as an occupational disease.

Iowa Code § 85A.8. In McSpadden v. Big Ben Coal Co., 288 N.W.2d 181, 190 (Iowa 1980), this court observed that repeal of the schedule potentially broadened the scope of occupational diseases compensable under chapter 85A. At the same time, other legislation narrowed the definition of "injury" to exclude occupational diseases. Id.; 1973 Iowa Acts ch. 144, § 21 (now codified at Iowa Code § 85.61(4)(b)). A further statutory prescription prevents duplicate recovery for injury and occupational disease:

No compensation shall be payable under this chapter for any condition of physical or mental ill-being, disability, disablement, or death for which compensation is recoverable on account of injury under the workers' compensation law.

Iowa Code § 85A.14.

Compensation for occupational disease also requires proof of disability. Iowa Code § 85A.5. "Disablement" is defined in the act as "the event or condition where an employee becomes actually incapacitated from performing the employee's work or from earning equal wages in other suitable employment because of an occupational disease...." Iowa Code § 85A.4; see Doerfer Div. of CCA v. Nicol, 359 N.W.2d 428, 438 (Iowa 1984) (compensation under chapter 85A "not awarded for injury, but for disability").

III. The deputy industrial commissioner's decision to deny Noble occupational disease benefits rested on two findings: (1) that she failed to tender medical evidence that carpal tunnel syndrome is a disease, and (2) that the record lacked evidence of disablement as that term is defined in Iowa Code section 85A.4. On review by the industrial commissioner and the district court, and now on appeal, Noble counters those findings with three arguments. First, she claims entitlement--as a matter of law--to coverage under the "broadened" provisions of the amended occupational disease law because carpal tunnel syndrome is related to bursitis, synovitis, and tenosynovitis, conditions formerly recognized as diseases under the statute. Second, she claims that repetitive motion or "overuse" syndromes should qualify as occupational diseases as a matter of law. And, third, she contends the agency's decision contravenes the objective of liberally interpreting these statutes to benefit workers. We shall consider the arguments briefly in turn.

A. The industrial commissioner concluded that although the 1973 repeal of the disease schedule may have broadened the definition of occupational disease, see McSpadden, 288 N.W.2d at 190, it does not follow automatically that carpal tunnel syndrome is compensable under chapter 85A. We agree. First, the record contains no medical evidence that carpal tunnel syndrome is related to or a variation of the formerly scheduled conditions. Assuming for the sake of argument that it is, we share the commissioner's skepticism whether conditions such as bursitis and tenosynovitis would be treated as diseases under the current statute. As noted by the commissioner, compensation for these conditions under section 85A.9,...