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Mrs. Baird's Bakery v. Cox4/26/2005
horized under the law to charge the result back to the original injury and to award the [worker] further compensation therefor is in effect to say that a man may profit by his own wrong. That this is not permissible is so fundamental as to require no citation of authorities in support hereof. Since the [worker] had sustained a permanent partial disability as the result of his sensitivity to oil and grease exposure, it was incumbent upon him to refrain from any conscious or deliberate act which would probably result in recurrence of his former disability; and since the evidence clearly discloses that the [worker] did not take any precautions for his own safety, but with full knowledge of his condition and in disregard of his own safety deliberately invited the very thing that happened, we are of the opinion that the present injury was the direct and proximate result of the [worker's] own act, and that therefore there was no competent evidence before the upon which to base its finding in making the instant award.
Id. at 350. (citations omitted).
In Patterson Steel Co. v. Stevens, 1965 OK 184, 408 P.2d 782, 784-785, citing and quoting from Deep Rock Oil Corp. v. Betchan, 1934 OK 406, 35 P.2d 905, 907-908, is contained the following:
The instant case is analogous to the circumstances disclosed in Deep Rock Oil Corp. v. Betchan ... wherein we considered the question of whether the cause of an employee's second injury was from slipping while engaged in the course of his employment, or from cranking his Model A Ford automobile. Therein we said:
"* * * Not every incident (referring to the cranking of his automobile) following an injury which physically aggravates it can be treated as a responsible intervening agency. * * *
"It seems that a law designed to compensate workmen for loss of earning capacity from industrial accidents must have been intended to extend its shield at least to aggravations affecting the course of the injury during convalescence when such are produced by not unnatural events and involve no omission or breach of duty. We therefore think the (is) sustained by the record in disregarding the automobile incident (cranking) as a responsible cause."
In the instant matter, competent evidence was presented at the trial before the WCC trial judge to show that claimant was adhering to his doctor-ordered forty (40) pound weight restriction when he reasonably picked up his twenty (20) pound daughter to suction her trachea. There was also plainly competent evidence presented at the trial supportive of a finding that the incident involving his daughter caused only a recurrence of the original work-related injury at the L4-5 level and that the recurrence was the result of mere inadvertence and accident on his part.
Thus, although the reasonableness of a home or non-work event is not always determinative of the causation issue, depending on the facts existent it may be a pertinent factor impacting the issue in certain circumstances. If the event is found by the WCC to be merely inadvertent and accidental and the injury suffered to be only a recurrence of an original work-related injury, the chain of causation or causal nexus will properly still be linked to that original work-related injury. However, if a recurrence of the former work-related injury is brought about by the deliberate, conscious act of the injured person, as in the Sinclair Prairie Oil Co. situation, it would be improper to attribute the recurrence back to the original work-related event.
PART IV. CONCLUSION
The COCA's majority erred in vacating the WCC three-judge panel's order because competent evidence was presented at th
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