Summary
The Supreme Court of South Carolina held that the Workers' Compensation Commission lacked authority to apportion liability between successive workers' compensation insurers absent statutory or case-law authorization. The court adopted the last injurious exposure rule and held that the insurer covering the risk at the time of the second injury, Liberty Mutual, was solely liable for benefits following that injury. The court also applied the Gordon rule, under which disability proximately caused by a subsequent accident aggravating a prior nondisabling injury is compensable based on the subsequent accident.
Holdings
- South Carolina adopts the last injurious exposure rule rather than an apportionment rule for successive workplace injuries. The insurer covering the risk at the time of the most recent causally related injury bears sole liability, unless the later injury is merely a recurrence of the earlier injury.
- Under Gordon, when a subsequent accidental workplace injury proximately causes disability by aggravating, accelerating, or activating a preexisting nondisabling condition resulting from an earlier injury, compensability is attributable to the subsequent injury rather than the earlier one. The rule is not limited to the particular facts of Gordon.
Questions Presented
- Whether the South Carolina Workers' Compensation Commission had authority to apportion liability between successive workers' compensation insurers for successive injuries.
- Whether the Court of Appeals erred by failing to apply the rule in Gordon v. E.I. Du Pont Nemours & Co. to a subsequent workplace injury that aggravated a preexisting condition caused by an earlier workplace injury.
Disposition
reversed
Cases Cited (12)
- Gordon v. E.I. Du Pont Nemours & Co., 228 S.C. 67, 88 S.E.2d 844 (1955)(followed)
- Shealy v. Aiken County, 341 S.C. 448, 535 S.E.2d 438 (2000)(followed)
- Lark v. Bi-Lo, Inc., 276 S.C. 130, 276 S.E.2d 304 (1981)(followed)
- Baxter v. Martin Bros., Inc., 368 S.C. 510, 630 S.E.2d 42 (2006)(followed)
- McCraw v. Mary Black Hosp., 350 S.C. 229, 565 S.E.2d 286 (2002)(followed)
- Anderson v. Babcock & Wilcox Co., 256 N.Y. 146, 175 N.E. 654 (1931)(discussed)
- Glenn v. Columbia Silica Sand Co., 236 S.C. 13, 112 S.E.2d 711 (1960)(followed by analogy)
- Hanks v. Blair Mills, Inc., 286 S.C. 378, 335 S.E.2d 91 (Ct. App. 1985)(followed by analogy)
- Hargrove v. Titan Textile Co., 360 S.C. 276, 599 S.E.2d 604 (Ct. App. 2004)(distinguished)
- Kearse v. S.C. Wildlife Res. Dep't, 236 S.C. 540, 115 S.E.2d 183 (1960)(followed)
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