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Carlyle v. Queen's Medical Center9/20/2002
In this workers' compensation case, Claimant-Appellant Kathleen G. Carlyle (Claimant) appeals the December 19, 2000 decision and order of the Labor and Industrial Relations Appeals Board of the State of Hawaii (the Board). The Board's decision and order affirmed the January 16, 1998 decision of the Director of Labor and Industrial Relations (the Director) that denied the claim for compensation Claimant filed on February 7, 1997, pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) ยง 386-3 (1993), after she was stuck by a needle on August 22, 1996 while scrubbed in as a surgical nurse for Employer-Appellee The Queen's Medical Center (Employer), and a day later tested positive for hepatitis C antibodies. We affirm.
I. Background.
At a pre-hearing conference held on April 9, 1998, which was attended by counsel for both parties, the sole issue for the April 13, 1999 hearing before the Board was identified as, "whether Claimant sustained a personal injury on August 22, 1996, arising out of and in the course of employment." An April 13, 1998 pretrial order was issued to that effect and served upon both counsel, and neither lawyer objected to the issue so framed and written. However, in a hearing memorandum submitted to the Board the day of the hearing, Claimant maintained she had never asserted her injury was sustained on the day she suffered the needle prick, August 22, 1996. Instead, Claimant took the following position:
[Claimant] had been exposed during the 11 years she worked for [Employer]. On August 22, 1996 [(sic)], she was tested and found hepatitis C positive. Claimant argued that her condition came from the scrapes, scratches and cuts from working in the operating room from May 1996 to August 1997. (Footnote supplied.)
At the beginning of the April 13, 1999 hearing before the Board, Claimant's counsel entered an "objection to the Board's decision to focus on the [August 22, 1996] date." The Board ruled that the objection was "improper[,]" due to the apparent acquiescence of Claimant's counsel in the Board's April 13, 1998 pretrial order. A bit later in the hearing, however, Employer's counsel objected to questioning by Claimant's counsel relating to possible causes of hepatitis C infection predating August 22, 1996, but the Board overruled the objection and allowed Employer's counsel a "continuing line of objection on these questions." For the balance of the hearing, Claimant thus had free rein to present such evidence. We consider this appeal on the basis of the issue framed and actually heard as Claimant would have it "whether [Claimant] sustained an injury that arose out of and in the course of her employment [with Employer]."
In its December 19, 2000 decision and order, the Board found as follows:
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. Claimant was employed by [Employer] from October of 1986 to August of 1997. On August 22, 1996, Claimant was working for Employer as an operating room nurse.
2. On August 22, 1996, Claimant was accidentally stuck with a needle while working in the operating room.
3. On August 23, 1996, Claimant took a blood test.
4. The test results showed that Claimant had antibodies for hepatitis C in her blood, which meant that she was exposed to the hepatitis C virus some time prior to August 22, 1996.
5. The medical evidence is clear and Claimant does not dispute that the needle stick on August 22, 1996 was not the source of her exposure to the hepatitis C virus.
6. Further laboratory testing, including normal liver function tests and the negative hepatitis C PCR test, showed that Claimant does not currently have active acute or chronic hepati
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