Sacred Heart Medical Center v. Carrado

• Decision Date: 31 May 1978
• Docket Number: No. 2303-III,2303-III
• Citation: 579 P.2d 412,20 Wn.App. 285
• Parties: SACRED HEART MEDICAL CENTER, Appellant, v. Norma Jean CARRADO, Respondent.
• Court: Washington Court of Appeals

Page 285

20 Wn.App. 285

579 P.2d 412

SACRED HEART MEDICAL CENTER, Appellant, v. Norma Jean CARRADO, Respondent.

No. 2303-III.

Court of Appeals of Washington,Division 3, Panel One.

May 31, 1978.

Rehearing Denied June 28, 1978.

Winston, Cashatt, Repsold, McNichols, Connelly & Driscoll, Michael J. Cronin, Spokane, for appellant.

Campbell, Johnston & Roach, Patrick T. Roach, Pasco, for respondent.

MUNSON, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff Sacred Heart Medical Center appeals a judgment after a jury verdict holding that the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals correctly determined that defendant's hepatitis was an occupational disease. ¹

Defendant Norma Carrado was employed at Sacred Heart Medical Center from approximately September 1971 to June 1973 and was continuously employed in the intensive care unit for the 6 months preceding discovery that she had contracted hepatitis. The intensive care unit includes general intensive care, postoperative heart recovery and acute kidney dialysis treatment. Mrs. Carrado's duties included caring for critical surgical and medical patients whose afflictions ranged from contagious diseases to post-surgical complications and respiratory problems.

In late May of 1973, Mrs. Carrado became aware that she had hepatitis. On June 26, 1973, she filed with the Department of Labor and Industries her claim for an occupational disease contracted during employment. On August 21, 1973, the Department rejected her claim; the hearing examiner had determined that Mrs. Carrado had failed to show that her hepatitis arose naturally and proximately from her employment at the hospital. Mrs. Carrado appealed this determination to the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals. The board reversed the hearing examiner's decision and concluded that Mrs. Carrado's hepatitis was a natural and proximate result of her employment. Sacred Heart Medical Center appealed the board's decision to the superior court. The court, after trial, entered judgment on the jury verdict affirming the board's decision.

An occupational disease is "such disease or infection as arises naturally and proximately out of employment . . ." RCW 51.08.140. In discussing an occupational disease in relation to proximate cause, the court in Simpson Logging Co. v. Department of Labor & Indus., 32 Wash.2d 472, 479, 202 P.2d 448, 452 (1949), stated:

The legislature is presumed to have been familiar with the meaning of "proximate cause" as used by the courts, and that being so, when they defined as an occupational disease those diseases or infections as arise naturally and proximately out of extrahazardous employment, it would follow that they meant that the condition of the extrahazardous employment must be the proximate cause of the disease for which claim for compensation is made, and that the cause must be proximate in the sense that there existed no intervening independent and sufficient cause for the disease, so that the disease would not have been contracted but for the condition existing in the extrahazardous employment.

Mrs. Carrado had the burden of establishing by medical testimony the causal relationship between her contraction of hepatitis and her employment at Sacred Heart Medical Center. Sawyer v. Department of Labor & Indus., 48 Wash.2d 761, 296 P.2d 706 (1956); Ehman v. Department of Labor & Indus., 33 Wash.2d 584, 206 P.2d 787 (1949); Rambeau v. Department of Labor & Indus.,24 Wash.2d 44, 163 P.2d 133 (1945). It appears to be well settled that medical testimony which indicates only a possibility of a causal relationship is not sufficient. The testimony must indicate the probability or likelihood of a causal relation between, in this case, the disease and the employment. Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Co. v. Department of Labor & Indus.,26 Wash.2d 233, 241, 173 P.2d 786 (1946). See also Sawyer v. Department of Labor & Indus., supra. The court in Cline v. Department of Labor & Indus.,50 Wash.2d 614, 616-17, 313 P.2d 687, 689 (1957), stated:

The rule is established that medical testimony as to the possibility of a casual relation between . . . (an) injury and the subsequent . . . impaired physical . . . condition of the person injured is not sufficient, standing alone, to establish such relation, but there must be testimony of the probability or likelihood of its existence.

Cf. Barrett v. Department of Labor & Indus., 52 Wash.2d 439, 441, 325 P.2d 896 (1958).

If there is substantial evidence to support the jury's verdict, that verdict should be upheld on appeal. Cline v. Department of Labor & Indus., supra ; Ehman v. Department of Labor & Indus., supra ; Omeitt v. Department of Labor & Indus., 21 Wash.2d 684, 152 P.2d 973 (1944). Substantial evidence is "that character of evidence which would convince an unprejudiced, thinking mind of the truth of the fact to which the evidence is directed." Omeitt v. Department of Labor & Indus., supra at 686, 152 P.2d at 974.

Mrs. Carrado testified that in performing her duties in the intensive care unit her skin was often cut, broken or scraped by instruments and...