{ "id": 2544088, "name": "HERMAN A. WILKINS, Employee, Plaintiff v. J.P. STEVENS & COMPANY, Employer; LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Carrier, and/or BURLINGTON INDUSTRIES, Employer; AMERICAN MOTORISTS INSURANCE COMPANY, Carrier, Defendants", "name_abbreviation": "Wilkins v. J.P. Stevens & Co.", "decision_date": "1993-03-12", "docket_number": "No. 16PA91", "first_page": "449", "last_page": "455", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "333 N.C. 449" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "N.C.", "id": 9292, "name": "Supreme Court of North Carolina" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 5, "name_long": "North Carolina", "name": "N.C." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "398 S.E.2d 66", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1990, "opinion_index": -1 }, { "cite": "100 N.C. App. 742", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C. App.", "case_ids": [ 8527587 ], "year": 1990, "opinion_index": -1, "case_paths": [ "/nc-app/100/0742-01" ] }, { "cite": "305 N.C. 296", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8567798 ], "year": 1982, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "297" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/305/0296-01" ] }, { "cite": "285 S.E.2d 822", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 1982, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "828" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "304 N.C. 670", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8570404 ], "year": 1982, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/304/0670-01" ] }, { "cite": "283 S.E.2d 101", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "106" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "304 N.C. 44", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8565283 ], "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "52" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/304/0044-01" ] }, { "cite": "331 S.E.2d 646", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1985, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "649" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "314 N.C. 70", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 4689159 ], "year": 1985, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "75" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/314/0070-01" ] }, { "cite": "301 S.E.2d 359", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "weight": 3, "year": 1983, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "369-70" }, { "page": "370" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "308 N.C. 85", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 4707972 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1983, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "102" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/308/0085-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 584, "char_count": 13982, "ocr_confidence": 0.701, "pagerank": { "raw": 6.950781921278023e-08, "percentile": 0.42131433145330094 }, "sha256": "7e11cc8fb68e456eb685a4b320c349e7d55574980e4e8fa292a99b4017f21612", "simhash": "1:974ad49ee739abf4", "word_count": 2167 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T15:19:51.258099+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [ "Justice Parker did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case." ], "parties": [ "HERMAN A. WILKINS, Employee, Plaintiff v. J.P. STEVENS & COMPANY, Employer; LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Carrier, and/or BURLINGTON INDUSTRIES, Employer; AMERICAN MOTORISTS INSURANCE COMPANY, Carrier, Defendants" ], "opinions": [ { "text": "EXUM, Chief Justice.\nThis is a claim for workers\u2019 compensation benefits based on plaintiff\u2019s contention that he has been rendered totally disabled by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) caused by his long exposure to cotton dust while working for defendant Burlington Industries (Burlington). The evidence before the Industrial Commission (Commission) tended to show that plaintiff\u2019s exposure to cotton dust played no causal role in the development of, but probably aggravated, his COPD. The Commission denied plaintiff\u2019s claim on the ground that his COPD was not an occupational disease and did not address specifically the aggravation evidence. The Court of Appeals affirmed.\nThe question before us concerns the legal significance, if any, of the aggravation evidence. We hold that on this record it has no legal significance and affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals, which reached the same conclusion.\nThe evidence before the Commission included plaintiff\u2019s medical records, to which all parties stipulated, various employment and cotton dust level records and reports maintained by Burlington, and the testimony of plaintiff and Dr. Herbert A. Saltzman, a specialist in pulmonary medicine and a member of the Textile Occupational Disease Panel.\nPlaintiff testified regarding his work history and conditions at Burlington: He worked at Burlington\u2019s Erwin Mill in Durham from the 1950\u2019s until the mill closed in 1986, during which time he was exposed to varying amounts of cotton dust. Because of limited education and job skills, he is not qualified to do anything but manual labor. He cannot do manual labor because of his breathing problems. He has not, therefore, been able to work since he worked at Burlington. He was fifty-six years old at the time of the hearing before the Hearing Examiner in July 1988. He began smoking cigarettes when he was twenty-three or twenty-four years old and smoked a pack a day for about twenty-seven years.\nThe medical evidence tended to show as follows:\nDr. Edward Williams, plaintiff\u2019s personal physician, wrote in his medical records, \u201cI see nothing in this man\u2019s past to indicate he has suffered from the toxic effect of cotton fiber.\u201d Dr. Saltzman testified that plaintiff\u2019s lung condition was \u201cindistinguishable from the changes of chronic bronchitis seen in individuals who smoke cigarettes and never enter a cotton mill.\u201d He expressed the opinion, based on \u201cthe late onset of [plaintiff\u2019s] symptoms [a]nd [on] the lack of . . . the more characteristic historical features of byssinosis\u201d in plaintiff\u2019s history, that it was \u201c[m]ore likely than not\u201d that plaintiff\u2019s occupational exposure to cotton dust was not a significant causative factor in the development of his chronic obstructive lung disease.\nAsked to assume that plaintiff\u2019s symptoms developed ten or fifteen years ago and that plaintiff\u2019s work history was as plaintiff described it in his testimony, including extremely dusty conditions in the mill in the 50\u2019s and 60\u2019s, Dr. Saltzman opined that plaintiff\u2019s thirty-year exposure to cotton dust \u201cprobably did aggravate his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but on a more likely than not basis, should not be considered as a primary causative factor.\u201d On these facts the aggravation, \u201c[m]ore likely than not,\u201d would have been permanent. Later in his testimony, Dr. Saltzman reiterated his opinion that plaintiff\u2019s exposure to cotton dust while working at Burlington \u201c[o]n a more likely than not basis, permanently aggravated [plaintiff\u2019s] impairment.\u201d\nDr. Saltzman testified that individuals with plaintiff\u2019s documented level of impairment are not able to engage in \u201cordinary full time industrial employment.\u201d As for plaintiff, Dr. Saltzman said, \u201cI think also, that an industrial type job, eight hours a day, would overtax him.\u201d\nOn cross-examination, Dr. Saltzman confirmed his opinion that plaintiff\u2019s cotton dust exposure may have permanently aggravated plaintiff\u2019s condition to some degree, but that it was not a significant contributing factor in the development of his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Dr. Saltzman again said \u201cthat exposure superimposed on [plaintiff\u2019s] chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was a significant aggravating factor . . . and produced additional permanent impairment.\u201d\nWhen Dr. Saltzman was asked to clarify whether plaintiff\u2019s exposure to cotton dust at Burlington was \u201ca significant contributing factor in the development of his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,\u201d Dr. Saltzman replied:\nYour question, as posed, in the development of it, that isn\u2019t a causation of his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. And, my answer to that is that on a more likely than not basis, no. Now the question that was put to me was, as I understood it, was[:] did that long exposure to cotton dust contribute additional impairment to a disease that was already present. The answer to that is yes.\nUnder the Workers\u2019 Compensation Act (the Act), an occupational disease is \u201c[a]ny disease . . . which is proven to be due to causes and conditions which are characteristic of and peculiar to a particular trade, occupation or employment, but excluding all ordinary diseases of life to which the general public is equally exposed outside of the employment.\u201d N.C.G.S. \u00a7 97-57(13) (1991). We set out in Rutledge v. Tultex Corp., 308 N.C. 85, 301 S.E.2d 359 (1983), the test for determining whether a workers\u2019 compensation claimant\u2019s COPD is an occupational disease under N.C.G.S. \u00a7 97-57(13) when the claimant had on-the-job exposure to cotton dust and when other non-job-related factors played causal roles in the COPD\u2019s development. We said:\n[C]hronic obstructive lung disease may be an occupational disease provided the occupation in question exposed the worker to a greater risk of contracting this disease than members of the public generally, and provided the worker\u2019s exposure to cotton dust significantly contributed to, or was a significant causal factor in, the disease\u2019s development. This is so even if other non-work-related factors also make significant contributions, or were significant causal factors.\nId. at 101, 301 S.E.2d at 369-70.\nSince all the medical evidence tended to show that plaintiffs work-related exposure to cotton dust did not significantly contribute to and was not a significant causal factor in the development of plaintiff\u2019s COPD, the Commission correctly concluded under Rutledge that plaintiff did not suffer from an occupational disease; therefore, plaintiff\u2019s incapacity for work caused by his COPD was not compensable.\nThe question is, what is the legal effect, in the context of a workers\u2019 compensation claim based on claimant\u2019s COPD, of evidence that claimant\u2019s work-related exposure to cotton dust did not cause, but probably aggravated, the COPD so as to produce additional permanent impairment to claimant\u2019s lungs. The answer is that, standing alone, such evidence has no legal effect.\nPhysical impairment alone is not compensable under the Act. For any physical impairment, including that caused by an occupational disease, to be compensable under the Act, it must be shown that the impairment has caused the claimant to have an incapacity for work. N.C.G.S. \u00a7\u00a7 97-2(9), 97-29 and 97-30 (1991). \u201cAn occupational disease does not become compensable . . . until it causes incapacity for work. This incapacity is the basic \u2018loss\u2019 for which the worker receives compensation . . . .\u201d Calder v. Waverly Mills, 314 N.C. 70, 75, 331 S.E.2d 646, 649 (1985). Conversely, any incapacity for work for which compensation is sought must be causally related to a condition of the workplace. In occupational disease cases, this means that something in the workplace helped to bring about the disease which, in turn, caused the incapacity for work for which compensation is sought. \u201c[T]here must be proof of a causal connection between the disease and the employment.\u201d Hansel v. Sherman Textiles, 304 N.C. 44, 52, 283 S.E.2d 101, 106 (1981). To insure this causal relationship between conditions of the workplace and the claimant\u2019s incapacity to work in the context of a COPD claim, it must be shown factually that claimant\u2019s \u201coccupational exposure was such a significant factor in the disease\u2019s development that without it the disease would not have developed to such an extent that it caused the physical disability which resulted in claimant\u2019s incapacity for work.\u201d Rutledge v. Tultex Corp., 308 N.C. at 102, 301 S.E.2d at 370.\nPlaintiff relies on this statement from Walston v. Burlington Mills, 304 N.C. 670, 285 S.E.2d 822, as amended, 305 N.C. 296, 297, 285 S.E.2d 822, 828 (1982): \u201cDisability [i.e., incapacity for work, see N.C.G.S. \u00a7 97-2(9)] caused by and resulting from a disease is compensable when, and only when, the disease is an occupational disease, or is aggravated or accelerated by causes and conditions characteristic of and peculiar to claimant\u2019s employment.\u201d (Emphasis added.) The sense of the statement is that for an incapacity for work to be compensable under the Act on the theory that conditions of the workplace aggravated a non-occupational disease, it must be shown that the aggravation itself was causally related to the incapacity for work for which compensation is sought. In other words, it must be shown factually that but for workplace aggravation of the non-occupational disease there would not have been the same incapacity for work for which compensation is sought. Stated another way, if the same incapacity for work for which compensation is sought would have resulted because of the nonoccupational disease itself, unaggravated by workplace conditions, there can be no compensation under the Act, even if workplace conditions, from a medical standpoint, aggravate the disease.\nIt is clear in this case that the evidence relating to aggravation rose only to the level of showing that plaintiff\u2019s non-occupational COPD was aggravated from a medical standpoint by his on-the-job exposure to cotton dust. When Dr. Saltzman testified that plaintiff\u2019s exposure to cotton dust aggravated his COPD, causing additional permanent impairment, it is clear that he was referring to the impairment of plaintiff\u2019s lungs and not to impairment of plaintiff\u2019s capacity for work. He testified as follows:\nQ. He had the pre-existing disease? Did then his exposure, in your opinion, did then his exposure to cotton dust aggravate his pre-existing C.O.P.D. to the extent that it worsened that disease, and resulted in further damage to his lungs?\nMs. WHITFIELD: Objection.\nTHE COURT: Overruled.\nA. I answered that question on a more likely than not basis. That it did aggravate, probably aggravated his symptoms and probably caused additional permanent impairment.\nQ. To his lungs?\nA. To his lungs.\nTaken as a whole the evidence shows that to the extent plaintiff was incapacitated for work, his incapacity resulted from his non-occupational COPD standing alone. There is no evidence that his exposure to cotton dust was causally related to this incapacity, even if it might have aggravated, in a medical sense, his COPD. Without evidence of a causal relation between the aggravation caused by the cotton dust and plaintiff\u2019s total incapacity for work for which he seeks compensation, the aggravation is not legally significant and does not entitle plaintiff to compensation. For these reasons the decision of the Court of Appeals is\nAFFIRMED.\nJustice Parker did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.\n. The Industrial Commission dismissed without objection plaintiffs claim against defendant J.P. Stevens.", "type": "majority", "author": "EXUM, Chief Justice." } ], "attorneys": [ "Taft, Taft & Haigler, by Robin E. Hudson and Thomas F. Taft, for plaintiff-appellant.", "Smith, Helms, Mulliss & Moore, by Jeri L. Whitfield and J. Donald Cowan, for defendant-appellees Burlington Industries and American Motorist Insurance Company.", "Hunton & Williams, by Randall D. Avram, for North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry, amicus curiae.", "Maupin, Taylor, Ellis & Adams, P.A., by Richard M. Lewis, for North Carolina Textile Manufacturers Association, amicus curiae." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "HERMAN A. WILKINS, Employee, Plaintiff v. J.P. STEVENS & COMPANY, Employer; LIBERTY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Carrier, and/or BURLINGTON INDUSTRIES, Employer; AMERICAN MOTORISTS INSURANCE COMPANY, Carrier, Defendants\nNo. 16PA91\n(Filed 12 March 1993)\nMaster and Servant \u00a7 68 (NCI3d) \u2014 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease \u2014cotton dust not causal \u2014aggravating factor \u2014claim denied\nThe Industrial Commission properly denied plaintiffs claim for workers\u2019 compensation benefits where plaintiff contended that he was rendered totally disabled by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease caused by exposure to cotton dust, but the evidence showed that his exposure to cotton dust played no causal role, but probably aggravated his COPD. Plaintiff\u2019s incapacity for work caused by his COPD was not compensable because all the medical evidence tended to show that his work related exposure to cotton dust did not significantly contribute to and was not a causal factor in the development of his COPD. It must be shown that an aggravation itself was causally related to the incapacity for work for the incapacity to be compensable on the theory that conditions of the workplace aggravated a non-occupational disease. It is clear in this case that testimony referring to plaintiff\u2019s exposure to cotton dust referred to the impairment of his lungs and not the impairment of his capacity for work. To the extent plaintiff was incapacitated for work, his incapacity resulted from his non-occupational COPD standing alone.\nAm Jur 2d, Workers\u2019 Compensation \u00a7\u00a7 328, 346.\nJustice PARKER did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.\nOn plaintiff\u2019s petition for discretionary review pursuant to N.C.G.S. \u00a7 7A-31 of a decision of the Court of Appeals, 100 N.C. App. 742, 398 S.E.2d 66 (1990), affirming the Opinion and Award of the North Carolina Industrial Commission. Heard in the Supreme Court on 9 September 1991.\nTaft, Taft & Haigler, by Robin E. Hudson and Thomas F. Taft, for plaintiff-appellant.\nSmith, Helms, Mulliss & Moore, by Jeri L. Whitfield and J. Donald Cowan, for defendant-appellees Burlington Industries and American Motorist Insurance Company.\nHunton & Williams, by Randall D. Avram, for North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry, amicus curiae.\nMaupin, Taylor, Ellis & Adams, P.A., by Richard M. Lewis, for North Carolina Textile Manufacturers Association, amicus curiae." }, "file_name": "0449-01", "first_page_order": 497, "last_page_order": 503 }