HD27 - Workers' Compensation
Executive Summary: INTRODUCTION During the 1985 Session of the General Assembly, a bill expanding the definition of "injury" under the Workers' Compensation Act to include injuries occurring in the course of one workshift was introduced and referred to the House Committee on Labor and Commerce. Although the full Committee and Workers' Compensation Subcommittee heard extensive testimony on the bill, they felt that the issue warranted more study therefore it was carried over by Rule of the Rules of the House for study during the interim. In April, the Supreme Court ruling in Western Electric Co. v. Gilliam greatly affected occupational disease rulings in the Commonwealth by narrowing the discretion of the Industrial Commission of Virginia in awarding compensation in such cases. Since this issue was of such great importance, it was incorporated into the study of the gradually-incurred injury bill, House Bill No. 1566. Copies of House Bill No. 1566 and the Gilliam case appear as Appendices 1 and 2 to this report. The Workers' Compensation Subcommittees of the House Committee on Labor and Commerce whose members included William T. Wilson of Covington, Kenneth E. Calvert of Danville, George W. Grayson of Williamsburg, Frank D. Hargrove of Glen Allen and Frank Medico of Alexandria, and of the Senate Committee on Commerce and Labor whose members included Elmon T. Gray of Waverly, Edward M. Holland of Arlington and Elliot S. Schewel of Lynchburg, studied the issues. C. William Crammé, III, Senior Attorney and Terry Mapp Barrett, Research Associate, of the Division of Legislative Services served as legal and research staff for the subcommittee. Ann Howard of the House Clerk's Office provided the clerical and administrative support for the subcommittee. WORK OF THE SUBCOMMI'ITEE The subcommittee heard a large amount of testimony during meetings held in 1985 on August 7 and October 31 and in 1986 on January 22 from a number of organizations and individuals including: the Industrial Commission of Virginia, Commissioner Charles G. James and Chief Deputy Commissioner L. W. Hiner; the Virginia State AFL-CIO, David Laws, President and Dan LaBlanc, Secretary-Treasurer; the Virginia Coal Association, Ed Evans; the Virginia Manufacturers' Association, Frank Talbott; the Virginia Association of Defense Attorneys, Charles Midkiff; the Association of General Contractors of Virginia, John Farnham; the American Insurance Association, James C. Roberts and Anthony F. Troy; Wilson Trucking Company, Ed Layman, Director of Safety; the Virginia Compensation Rating Bureau, George Weston; several claimant and defense attorneys including Lawrence J. Pascal, Donald Pendleton, Robert Dely, C. Torrence Armstrong and Roger Williams and a representative of self-insured employers, James A. Harper. The overall issue of whether gradually incurred injuries should be compensated was discussed during a portion of the August 7 meeting yet most of the testimony heard and discussion that took place concerned the Gilliam case. The major question that surfaced during the discussions was whether the Supreme Court reasonably interpreted the definition of "occupational disease" in Gilliam. At the onset of the study, the Industrial Commission informed the joint subcommittee that over the years there have been some problems with the accident and occupational disease concepts as far as awards have been concerned. They explained that although one thinks of an accident as the result of a quick or sudden impact and of an occupational disease as a result of exposure over a period of time, there is some overlapping of the two in the gradually-incurred issues. The Commission reviewed four cases that were significant to the issues being considered that have been handed down by the Supreme Court since the last study of the gradually-incurred injury issue (1982). In each of these cases the claim was awarded by the Commission and reversed by the Supreme Court. Summaries of these cases appear as Appendix 3 to this report. |
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