Deaconess Hospital, Own Risk v. Ledbetter

2002 OK CIV APP 29, 41 P.3d 1050, 73 O.B.A.J. 732, 2001 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 147, 2001 WL 1801022
CourtCourt of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedOctober 23, 2001
DocketNo. 95,839
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 2002 OK CIV APP 29 (Deaconess Hospital, Own Risk v. Ledbetter) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Civil Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Deaconess Hospital, Own Risk v. Ledbetter, 2002 OK CIV APP 29, 41 P.3d 1050, 73 O.B.A.J. 732, 2001 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 147, 2001 WL 1801022 (Okla. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinion

JOE C. TAYLOR, Judge.

T1 Employer, Deaconess Hospital, seeks review of an order of the three-judge panel of the workers' compensation court affirming the trial court's order finding Claimant, Deborah A. Ledbetter, sustained an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of her employment. The issues on appeal are (1) whether the workers' compensation court correctly determined that the statute of limitations had not run on Claimant's claim, and (2) whether there is competent evidence to support a causal connection between Claimant's hepatitis C and her work for Employer. Having reviewed the record, the parties' briefs, and the applicable law, we answer both questions in the affirmative, and sustain the panel's order.

12 At trial, the parties stipulated that Claimant worked for Deaconess Hospital from August 1994 until December 830, 1998, and that, due to a purchase, Claimant began working for Oklahoma Surgery and Urology on January 1, 1999. While working for both Deaconess and Oklahoma Surgery, Claimant was a lithotripsy technician. Her job duties required her to hold patients, who were anesthetized and catheterized, upright in a tub of water while sound waves were used to crush kidney stones. Although the tub was disinfected at the end of each day, Claimant testified it was not wiped down or disinfected [1052]*1052after each patient. This testimony was not refuted.

13 In order to hold and move patients in the water, Claimant would have to put her hands and often her arms into the water. Often the patient would bleed, urinate, and defecate in the water. According to Claimant, blood and urine were in the water 90 to 95% of the time. Although Claimant wore gloves that covered her hands to her wrists, the gloves did not protect her arms, and, if she had to put her arms in the water, the water would get inside the gloves. Sometimes she would have breaks in her skin when she had her hands in the water. Also, Claimant was sometimes splashed with body fluids while performing her job.

{4 On March 24, 1999, Claimant was splashed with a considerable amount of body fluids. Because of this incident, she was tested, and the results were positive for hepatitis C. Although the parties now agree that the March 24, 1999, incident is not the incident in which Claimant contracted hepatitis C, it is the date that she was first diagnosed with the illness and became aware that she had it.

T5 Claimant filed her Form 3 against Oklahoma Surgery and Urology Clinic on June 25, 1999, asserting that she contracted hepatitis C while handling blood and other body fluids as a lithotripsy technician. Deaconess subsequently was added as a respondent. Oklahoma Surgery and Deaconess both defended the claim by arguing the statute of limitations had run and/or that Claimant contracted hepatitis from another source (particularly from a tattoo needle or from a sexual partner).

16 The workers' compensation trial court found that on "March 24, 1999 (date of diagnosis) claimant sustained an accidental personal injury in the nature of Hepatitis C arising out of and in the,. course of [her] employment." (Emphasis omitted.) The court rejected the statute of limitations defense, finding that "[alecidental injury from an infectious disease such as Hepatitis C does not occur until the condition becomes manifest" and "claimant's injury became manifest upon diagnosis: March 24, 1999." After "weighing all the evidence," the court also denied the defense of pre-existing injury, holding that, although "claimant had other potential exposures to Hepatitis C in her lifetime ... mere potential exposure without more is certainly no proof of a pre-existing infectious disease."

T7 Due to symptoms that Claimant suffered in 1998 that have now been attributed to the hepatitis C and a report that hepatitis C has a minimum incubation period of three to six months in order to produce a positive test, the trial court assessed liability against only Deaconess Hospital, with whom Claimant was employed from August 30, 1994, through December 31, 1998. Thus, the trial court dismissed Oklahoma Surgery and Urology Clinic. Deaconess appealed to the three-judge panel, which affirmed the trial court's order.

THE CLAIM IS NOT BARRED BY THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

18 Deaconess argues that the workers' compensation court erred in determining that the statute of limitations began to run from March 24, 1999, the date that Claimant was diagnosed with hepatitis C.1 We disagree.

19 The statute of limitations for single-event injuries is two years from "the date of accidental injury or death." 85 0.8. Supp. 2000 § 48 (A). For cumulative trauma injuries, the limitations period is two years from "the date of last trauma or hazardous exposure." Id. And, for injuries arising from the occupational diseases of asbestosis, silicosis, or exposure to nuclear radiation, the limitations period is two years from "the date of last hazardous exposure or ... from the date said condition first becomes manifest by a symptom or condition from which one learned in medicine could, with reasonable accuracy, diagnose such specific condition, [1053]*1053whichever last occurs." Id. Hepatitis C, an infectious disease, is neither a cumulative trauma injury nor an occupational disease defined by § 48(A). Rather, it is a single-event injury that "is contracted from an unexpected, but specific, exposure at a definite time to the disease, where the exposure is by chance, or unintentional." Wheaton v. City of Tulsa Fire Dep't, 1998 OK CIV APP 155, ¶ 5, 970 P.2d 194, 195. Thus, we must determine whether Claimant filed her claim within two years of the date of her accidental injury. 85 O.S. Supp.2000 § 48 (A).

110 "Mere exposure to an infectious disease, no matter how threatening, is not enough to constitute a compensable event-it is not 'accidental injury."" Dyke v. Saint Francis Hosp., Inc., 1993 OK 114, ¶ 18, 861 P.2d 295, 301 (emphasis omitted). Rather, "[aln on-the-job exposure must pass through the incubation period and develop into an infectious disease before it may be viewed as an accidental injury compensable by the employer." Id. An employee's or an employer's apprehension of exposure to a disease "cannot be translated into compensation liability for an 'accidental personal injury.'" See id., 861 P.2d at 301-02.

111 We agree with the trial court that, based on the principles of Dyke, accidental injury from an infectious disease such as hepatitis C does not occur "until the condition becomes manifest." In the instant case, we find that Claimant's hepatitis C manifested itself when Claimant tested positive for the disease on March 24, 1999. Thus, Claimant's Form 3, which was filed on June 25, 1999, was timely, and the trial court correctly rejected Deaconess' statute of limitations defense.

THE ORDER FINDING A COMPENSA-BLE INJURY IS SUPPORTED BY COMPETENT EVIDENCE

112 Deaconess next argues that Claimant did not meet her burden of proving that she contracted hepatitis C while working at Deaconess.2 We use the any-competent-evidence standard to review the issue of whether Claimant's injury arose out of and in the course of her employment with Degcon-ess. See City of Edmond v. Monday, 1995 OK 132, 910 P.2d 980. Under this standard we do not weigh the evidence; we simply canvass the facts to determine whether the workers' compensation court's decision is supported by competent evidence. Leforce v. Legion Enter., Inc., 2001 OK CIV APP 35, 20 P.3d 177.

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2002 OK CIV APP 29, 41 P.3d 1050, 73 O.B.A.J. 732, 2001 Okla. Civ. App. LEXIS 147, 2001 WL 1801022, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/deaconess-hospital-own-risk-v-ledbetter-oklacivapp-2001.