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EX PARTE TRINITY INDUSTRIES5/3/1996
This case presents a question regarding the proper test for determining causation in workers' compensation cases and a question regarding the proper standard for reviewing workers' compensation cases.
On September 2, 1992, Vallie J. Cunningham, who worked as a punch press operator, was rendered permanently and totally disabled as the result of a stroke he suffered while at the workplace of his employer, Trinity Industries, Inc. On December 4, 1992, Cunningham sued Trinity, seeking workers' compensation benefits. The trial court, after a bench trial, entered a judgment for Cunningham, "find that [Cunningham had] satisfied the dual burden of proving legal and medical causation." Trinity appealed, arguing, among other things, that Cunningham had failed to present substantial evidence of either legal or medical causation. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed. Trinity Industries, Inc. v. Cunningham, 680 So.2d 253 (Ala.Civ.App. 1995). We granted certiorari review to determine whether, in affirming, the Court of Civil Appeals had erred in overruling caselaw regarding the test for causation in "nonaccidental" injury cases and whether that court had misconstrued the "substantial evidence" standard of review.
Cunningham's duties required him to continually lift pieces of metal weighing 15 pounds; he would place a piece in the punch press machine, punch it, remove it, and pick up the next piece. On the day he suffered the stroke, Cunningham began his work around 7:00 a.m., and he continued to work until around 11:30 a.m., taking only one 15-minute break. After he left his machine around 11:30, Cunningham walked to the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, and while sitting there experienced symptoms of a stroke. He was later informed that he had suffered a stroke, and that he was an undiagnosed hypertensive. Before the stroke, Cunningham had never experienced high blood pressure.
We have repeatedly stated that an employer is not the absolute insurer of an employee's health and should bear only the costs of compensating employees for accidents that arise out of and in the course of their employment. See, e.g., Reynolds Metals Co. v. Gray, 278 Ala. 309, 178 So.2d 87 (1965). Section 25-5-31, Ala. Code 1975, provides:
"When personal injury . . . is caused to an employee by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, of which injury the actual or lawfully imputed
negligence of the employer is the natural and proximate cause, [the employee] . . . shall receive compensation by way of damages therefor from the employer. . . ."
Whether an accidental injury "arises out of" the claimant's employment is basically a question of whether there is a causal relationship between the claimant's performance of his or her duties as an employee and the complained-of injury. Determining whether a causal relationship has been established between the performance of the claimant's duties as an employee and the complained-of injury is especially difficult and troublesome when the complained-of injury was not produced by some sudden and traumatic external event. For simplicity, we will refer to such events as "nonaccidental" injuries. More than 50 years ago, in Pow v. Southern Constr. Co., 235 Ala. 580, 180 So. 288 (1938), this Court held that the term "accident arising out of employment" included more than just incidents in which injuries arise from sudden and traumatic external causes. In Pow, the Court allowed recovery to the family of a person who had contracted and had subsequently died from pneumonia, after having been forced by his employment duties to work outside in very wet conditions. However, the Court did not hold that every injury that c
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