Iowa Top Court Finds Latex Allergy Injury Arose Out Of & In Course Of Nurse’s Employment

25 for 25 in '25

Over the next 12 months, we will be taking a look back at important and noteworthy workers' compensation cases that have come up in each of the 25 years WorkersCompensation.com has been around. First up: 2000 and the Iowa Supreme Court.

Case

St. Luke's Hosp. v. Gray, 604 N.W. 2d 646 (Iowa 2000).

What Happened

A registered nurse of a hospital began noticing symptoms of latex allergy about five years into her tenure. These symptoms led her to eventually quit her job and file a workers' compensation claim. She received an award of benefits, and the hospital and its insurer appealed, arguing that substantial evidence did not support the industrial commissioner's finding that the nurse's latex injury was caused by her employment.

Rule of Law

Under Dunlavey v. Economy Fire & Cas. Co., 526 N.W. 845 (Iowa 1995) and Almquist v. Shenandoah Nurseries, Inc., 254 N.W. 35 (Iowa 1934), "A personal injury, contemplated by the Workmen's Compensation Law, obviously means an injury to the body, the impairment of health, or a disease, not excluded by the act, which comes about, not through the natural building up and tearing down of the human body, but because of a traumatic or other hurt or damage to the health or body of an employee. ... The injury to the human body here contemplated must be something, whether an accident or not, that acts extraneously to the natural processes of nature, and thereby impairs the health, overcomes, injures, interrupts, or destroys some function of the body, or otherwise damages or injures a part or all of the body. This is the personal injury contemplated by ... the ... Code."

In the Course Of

An injury occurs in the course of employment when it is within the period of employment at a place where the employee reasonably may be in performing his duties, and while he is fulfilling those duties or engaged in doing something incidental thereto.

Arises Out Of

An injury “arises out of” employment if there is a causal connection between the employment and the injury. 

What the Iowa Supreme Court Said

Although the compensability of a latex allergy had not previously come up in an Iowa Supreme Court case, the court found plenty of persuasive cases from across the country to guide its reasoning. For example, the court cited the following:

Webb v. New Mexico Publishing Co., 141 P.2d 333 (N.M. 1943). This case involved a workers' compensation claim by a printer for a publishing company who was highly allergic to the type of soap provided by the employer. The allergic reaction was compensable because "his duties required him to wash his hands to prevent soiling the products of his labor."

Hardin's Bakeries, Inc. v. Ranager, 64 So.2d 705 (Miss. 1953). A baker became disabled as a result of a rash on his hands and arms caused by an allergy to mittens used in handling hot pans of bread. According to the court the allergy was like asthma, which had previously been found to be an accidental injury and not an occupational, because it was "not a usual concomitant or result of the work he was doing" and it could not "be attributed to the occupation because it is not a disease which [workers] in the occupation are subject to contract."

Bidermann Industries v. Peterson, 655 So.2d 997 (Ala. Civ. App. 1994). The court found that a seamstress who experienced allergic contact dermatitis at work suffered from an accidental injury rather than occupational disease because when she was away from work, her condition improved, and when she returned, it worsened.

National Underground Storage v. Workmen's Compensation Appeal Bd. (Durochia), 658 A.2d 1389 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 1995). This case recognized that allergic reactions were compensable as an injury, even though the underlying allergy would not be.

Following these cases and acknowledging that Iowa had a broad definition of "injury," the court found that the commissioner and lower court were correct in holding that allergic reactions were compensable and that the medical evidence supported a finding that the nurse's injury arose out of her employment at the hospital.

Takeaway

In Iowa, an allergic reaction to latex that is required on the job, as happened in a case involving a hospital nurse in 2000, is a compensable injury.

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