Lear Corporation Winchester v. A. McFarland ( 1999 )

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA
Present: Chief Judge Fitzpatrick, Judge Lemons and
Senior Judge Duff
Argued at Alexandria, Virginia
LEAR CORPORATION WINCHESTER AND
EMPLOYERS INSURANCE OF WAUSAU
MEMORANDUM OPINION * BY
v. Record No. 2139-98-4 CHIEF JUDGE JOHANNA L. FITZPATRICK
MAY 11, 1999
ANNA M. McFARLAND
FROM THE VIRGINIA WORKERS' COMPENSATION COMMISSION
Cathleen P. Welsh (Wharton, Aldhizer &
Weaver, P.L.C., on brief), for appellants.
Nikolas E. Parthemos (Parthemos & Bryant,
P.C., on brief), for appellee.
In this workers' compensation case, Lear Corporation
Winchester and Employers Insurance of Wausau (collectively
"employer") appeal a decision of the Workers' Compensation
Commission awarding benefits to Anna M. McFarland ("claimant").
Employer contends that the commission erred in finding that
claimant's injury arose out of her employment. Finding no
error, we affirm the commission's decision.
I.
"Under familiar principles, we view the evidence in the
light most favorable to the party prevailing below. The
*
Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, recodifying Code § 17-116.010,
this opinion is not designated for publication.
commission's findings of fact will be upheld on appeal if they
are supported by credible evidence." Uninsured Employer's Fund
v. Clark, 26 Va. App. 277, 280, 494 S.E.2d 474, 475 (1998).
So viewed, the evidence established that on January 27, 1997,
claimant was working as a "relief operator" engaged in the
assembly of cardboard boxes. She was five-feet, four-inches
tall, and weighed 200 pounds. The boxes were described as two
and one-half feet tall and five feet long, and each box weighed
approximately one-fourth pound. As a relief operator, claimant
would retrieve two or three pre-cut boxes from a skid. The
boxes were pulled apart and the bottom flaps were folded toward
the center and taped closed. Claimant assembled boxes as "fast
as [she] could" in approximately two-hour increments.
Claimant testified that as she made the boxes, her body was
in a "squatting" position, both knees bent, and her waist bent
at about a forty-five degree angle. She would hold her right
knee on the side of the box to keep it from moving. Claimant
also demonstrated this technique for the deputy commissioner,
who described claimant's physical position as "a slight squat,
knees slightly flexed."
At the time of her injury, claimant had been in the process
of retrieving and making boxes for approximately 25-30 minutes.
Claimant finished assembling one box and as she was
straightening her body to an upright position, she felt "a sharp
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stabbing pain" in her lower back on the right-hand side. She
stopped working, took some "Tylenol" and attempted to return to
work. However, she was unable to continue working and was taken
to the Winchester Medical Center emergency room for medical
treatment.
At the hearing before the deputy commissioner, employer
introduced into evidence a videotape of another employee
assembling cardboard boxes. After viewing the videotape,
claimant testified that she did not put together boxes in the
same manner as the other employee. 1
The deputy commissioner found that at the time of her
injury, claimant "performed her work in an awkward position,"
which was "sustained for repeated periods of time." The deputy
commissioner concluded claimant's injury arose out of her
employment and, therefore, awarded compensation benefits. The
full commission agreed:
1
Claimant testified as follows:
Q. . . . All right. You saw her technique
with how much bending she was doing and what
she was doing with her legs. Is her
technique identical to your technique or are
there differences?
A. There is [sic] differences.
Q. Okay. Tell us what differences there
are?
A. Well, you know, she just bends over from
the waist and do [sic] them. But I usually
put my knee up against the box, you know,
and bend and tape my box up.
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The employer primarily argues that the
claimant's injury did not arise out of her
employment. We agree with the Deputy
Commissioner that it did.
The accident occurred after the
claimant was partially squatting and bending
over, at a forty-five degree angle, bracing
a box with her knee. She felt a sharp
stabbing pain in her lower back, when she
was straightening up from this position.
She had done this work for approximately
one-half hour.
The commission recognized that "simple acts of walking, bending
or turning without any other contributing environmental factors
are not risks of employment." However, the commission concluded
that "[claimant's] injury did not occur from just straightening.
She had worked in an awkward position: bent at the waist,
slightly crouching with her right knee against a box for about
thirty minutes, and was injured when she rose from this
position."
II.
Employer contends that the evidence does not support the
commission's finding that claimant sustained a compensable
injury arising out of her employment. Employer argues that
claimant's injury resulted from a "simple and common movement"
that should not be considered a risk of her employment. We
disagree.
In order to receive compensation benefits, claimant must
prove that she suffered an injury by accident that arose out of
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and in the course of the employment. See County of Chesterfield
v. Johnson, 237 Va. 180, 183, 376 S.E.2d 73, 74 (1989). An
injury "arises out of" the employment if a causal connection
exists between the claimant's injury and "the conditions under
which the employer requires the work to be performed," Grove v.
Allied Signal, Inc., 15 Va. App. 17, 19, 421 S.E.2d 32, 34
(1992), or "that some significant work related exertion caused
the injury." Plumb Rite Plumbing Service v. Barbour, 8 Va. App.
482, 484, 382 S.E.2d 305, 306 (1989).
"Under this test, if the injury can be seen
to have followed as a natural incident of
the work and to have been contemplated by a
reasonable person familiar with the whole
situation as a result of the exposure
occasioned by the nature of the employment,
then it arises 'out of' the employment. But
it excludes an injury which cannot fairly be
traced to the employment as a contributing
proximate cause and which comes from a
hazard to which the workmen would have been
equally exposed apart from the employment.
The causative danger must be peculiar to the
work and not common to the neighborhood. It
must be incidental to the character of the
business and not independent of the relation
of master and servant. It need not have
been foreseen or expected, but after the
event it must appear to have had its origin
in a risk connected with the employment, and
to have flowed from that source as a
rational consequence."
R & T Investments, Ltd. v. Johns, 228 Va. 249, 252-53, 321
S.E.2d 287, 289 (1984) (citations omitted).
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In Richard E. Brown, Inc. v. Caporaletti, 12 Va. App. 242,
402 S.E.2d 709 (1991), we determined whether an employee's
cutting and fitting motion performed in a bent over position
while installing a 100-pound furnace exposed him to a risk of
back injury unique to his employment. Affirming the
commission's award of benefits, we concluded the employee's need
to work in the bent over position and to extract himself from
that position was a "hazard to which [the employee] would not
have been equally exposed apart from the conditions of
employment." Id. at 245, 402 S.E.2d at 711 (citations omitted).
See also Bassett-Walker, Inc. v. Wyatt, 26 Va. App. 87, 93-94,
493 S.E.2d 384, 387-88 (1997) (concluding that claimant's
knee-bending or "squatting" to reach a position close to the
ground to load yarn on a knitting machine was a condition of
work that exposed claimant to risk of injury); Grove, 15 Va.
App. at 20-21, 421 S.E.2d at 34-35 (holding that claimant's
stooping and bending incidental to fixing pipes exposed him to a
risk of back injury particular to his employment).
In the instant case, credible evidence supports the
commission's finding that claimant worked in an awkward
position, "bent at the waist, slightly crouching with her right
knee against a box." Claimant testified that as she made the
boxes, her body was in a "squatting" position, both knees bent,
and her waist bent at about a forty-five degree angle. She
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would hold her right knee on the side of the box to keep it from
moving.
Additionally, claimant demonstrated this technique to the
deputy commissioner and the full commission had the benefit of
the deputy commissioner's contemporaneous description of her
physical position (i.e., "A slight squat. Knees slightly
flexed."). We will not substitute our judgment for that of the
trier of fact, who had an opportunity to observe the witnesses
and evaluate their credibility. See Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
v. Pierce, 5 Va. App. 374, 382, 363 S.E.2d 433, 437 (1987),
appeal after remand, 9 Va. App. 120, 384 S.E.2d 333 (1989).
Nevertheless, employer contends that there is nothing
awkward or unusual about claimant's work activity because she
"bent in the same or similar fashion" outside the work
environment. Contrary to employer's position, claimant
testified on re-direct that in none of the activities she
performed at home was she stooped or bent at the waist with her
knee propped against something. Moreover, "[t]he mere fact that
an unusual movement required by one's employment is occasionally
done outside the workplace does not necessarily make a resulting
workplace injury non-compensable." Bassett-Walker, 26 Va. App.
at 94, 493 S.E.2d at 387-88.
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Credible evidence supports the commission's findings and,
accordingly, we affirm the award of compensation benefits. 2
Affirmed.
2
Additionally, employer maintains that the commission erred
in finding that claimant was "bent over in [an awkward] position
for thirty minutes." In this regard, employer misconstrues the
findings made by the commission. While the commission noted
that claimant was working in an awkward position for an extended
time, the record is clear that claimant worked approximately
thirty minutes before she was injured. Claimant described the
procedure in assembling the boxes, which included bending her
waist and knees while she taped the boxes and straightening her
body when she completed a box.
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