Recent North Carolina Industrial Commission Decision Clarifies Specific Traumatic Incident Under Workers' Compensation Laws

Robin Martinek

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In a recent decision by the Full Commission, the Commission recognized that an employee suffered a specific traumatic incident resulting in injury to her back despite the fact that the pain did not become disabling until days after it began hurting. The key issue in this case was whether the injured employee sustained a back injury in a judicially cognizable time or as a gradual development over time.

The Commission clarified that as long as the injured employee establishes a judicially cognizable time or a specific specific period of time when they were working with a inciting event or incident causing the injury, the fact that the pain developed gradually over time did not bar the injury from being compensable under North Carolina law.

The Commission cited Chambers v. Transit Management, Fish v. Steelcase, Inc., and Roach v. Lupoli Constr. Co. to support their decision.

To clarify, back injuries are on of the few types of injuries that does not require an accident, but merely a specific traumatic incident, to be compensable.

"With respect to back injuries, however, where injury to the back arises out of and in the course of the employment and is the direct result of a specific traumatic incident of the work assigned, “injury by accident” shall be construed to include any disabling physical injury to the back arising out of and causally related to such incident." N.C.G.S. § 97-2(6) (2005).

Establishing a specific traumatic incident does not require the employee to prove that the incident is isolatable to a specific hour or even day. The main issue is whether there was a specific injury versus a gradual deterioration of the employee's back condition.