Fort James Operating Co. v. Crump12/17/2004
ey, J., concurs.
Pittman, J., concurs in part and concurs in the result in part, with writing.
Murdock, J., dissents, with writing, which Thompson, J., joins.
PITTMAN, Judge, concurring in part and concurring in the result in part.
I concur in the main opinion except as to its treatment of the relation-back doctrine; as to that issue, I concur in the result reached in the main opinion on the authority of Labinal, Inc./Globe Motors v. Alphord, 820 So. 2d 104, 110 (Ala. Civ. App. 2001).
MURDOCK, Judge, dissenting.
Based on my review of the allegations in the amended complaint; the extra-judicial statements, both written and oral, made by Crump; Crump's deposition and trial testimony; and the testimony and other medical evidence received from the various physicians in this case, including Dr. French, Dr. Henderson, Dr. Bobo, and Dr. Allen, it appears that the record does contain substantial evidence that, on November 5, 1998, Crump suffered an "injury" from an "accident" within the meaning of our Workers' Compensation Act, Ala. Code 1975, ยง 25-5-1 et seq. Specifically, the record contains substantial evidence supporting the proposition that Crump suffered either a new injury on that date or an aggravation of an existing condition. See generally Ex parte Pike County Comm'n, 740 So. 2d 1080 (Ala. 1999). Based on my review of all of the evidence, I do not find substantial evidence that the worsening of Crump's condition on November 5, 1998, represents merely a recurrence of the condition caused by her March 25, 1998, accident. The injury alleged in the June 2001 amended complaint is not, in the words of this court in Gulf States Steel, Inc. v. White, 742 So. 2d 1264, 1267 (Ala. Civ. App. 1999), the same "'injury originally declared upon.'" Accordingly, in the terminology of Rule 15, Ala. R. Civ. P., the June 5, 2001, amendment to Crump's complaint concerned a separate "occurrence" insofar as liability under the Workers' Compensation Act is concerned. I must conclude therefore that that amendment does not relate back to the date of the original complaint, and, therefore, that it is untimely. Accordingly, I must respectfully dissent from the main opinion's affirmance of the judgment by the trial court finding Fort James liable to Crump under the Workers' Compensation Act with respect to the November 5, 1998, injury alleged in that amendment.
It is not entirely clear whether the trial court applied the so-called "direct and natural consequence rule." This rule applies only when the employee suffers a compensable injury at work, and then sustains a subsequent injury outside the course of the employment, in order to make the subsequent injury compensable under the terms of the Act. Ex parte Pike County Comm'n, 740 So. 2d 1080. Although Pike County holds that an injury occurring outside of the workplace may be compensable if it is a natural consequence of the workplace injury, Pike County does not stand for the proposition that the subsequent injury is not a separate injury, or accident, for purposes of the statute of limitations. Indeed, the converse is true. See Gulf States Steel, Inc., 742 So. 2d at 1268 (discussing Erwin v. Harris, 474 So. 2d 1125 (Ala. Civ. App. 1985)).
As was true in Gulf States Steel, Inc. v. White, the employee in this case could have maintained separate and distinct actions to recover workers' compensation benefits for her first and second accidents. She elected not to do so and cannot revive her statutorily barred claim for the latter injury by amending her complaint to include, what is, at best, from the employee's perspective, an aggravation of the pre-existing condition that has arisen from a se
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