 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Bowles v. General Electric3/31/2005
ation of the continuing wrong doctrine. See Peck v. City of Michigan City, 149 Ind. 670, 49 N.E. 800 (Ind. 1898) (holding that public nuisance claim based on sewage drainage affords a continuing right of action); Dolph v. Mangus 400 N.E.2d 189 (Ind. Ct. App. 1980) (holding that damage to plaintiff's land from drainage system had become permanent more than six years before commencement of action and thus claim was barred). The continuing wrong doctrine is a "legal concept used to define when an act, omission, or neglect took place" and causes a statute of limitations to begin to run at the end of the continuing wrongful act. Follett v. Davis, 636 N.E.2d 1282, 1284 (Ind. Ct. App. 1994). Often, the doctrine is invoked in the medical malpractice context. See, e.g., Lebraun v. Conner, 702 N.E.2d 754 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999) (finding that an optometrist's alleged continuing wrong in failing to diagnose and monitor a patient's glaucoma ceased, and the statute of limitations on a malpractice claim commenced, on the last date the optometrist treated the patient). The continuing wrong doctrine, however, is fundamentally at odds with Indiana's worker's compensation laws since, as the doctrine's name implies, an initial wrongful act is required for its application. Worker's compensation, to the contrary, is designed to provide compensation to injured employees without regard to a determination of fault or wrongful actions. See, e.g., Waldridge v. Futurex Indus., Inc., 714 N.E.2d 783 (Ind. Ct. App. 1999). As such, we disagree that language in Union City discussing the permanence of an injury should be used as the basis of a rule in repetitive stress injury cases regarding when a claim accrues.
Bowles also claims that approval of the Duvall rule will result in a sharp increase in the number of worker's compensation claims filed by employees who will err on the side of caution and file a claim at the first sign of a repetitive stress injury . This may well occur, but we fail to see why this possibility should foreclose the rule's application. While claim volume may increase, employers may also be provided greater opportunities to remedy a problematic working condition before a job -related injury increases in severity or becomes irreparable. The Act is intended to be the exclusive remedy for employees injured on the job. See GKN Co. v. Magness, 744 N.E.2d 397, 401-02 (Ind. 2001) (holding that the Act "provides the exclusive remedy for recovery of personal injuries arising out of and in the course of employment"). We find it untenable to permit Bowles to now seek recovery under the Act despite her conscious rejection of such recovery for over five years.
Bowles's true complaint, we believe, lies not with the application of Duvall, but with Indiana's worker's compensation scheme, which requires employees seeking compensation under the Act to put themselves under the direction and control of their employer's doctors. See I.C. § 23-3-3-4 (enumerating an employer's responsibility to provide medical care); see also Daugherty v. Indus. Contracting & Erecting, 802 N.E.2d 912, 915 (Ind. 2004) (" ur courts have long held that under [I.C. § 23-3-3-4] an employee generally is not free to elect at the employer's expense additional treatment or other physicians than those tendered by the employer"). This was something Bowles was unwilling to do. Because Bowles's injury was discernible, at the latest, by November 1999, the Application is time-barred. The Board did not err in its interpretation of the law.
Judgment affirmed.
SHARPNACK, J., and BAKER, J., concur.
Page 1 2 3 4 5 Indiana Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|