## Facts

- Robert Booker worked as a clinical chemistry laboratory technician at Duke Medical Center, handling and analyzing blood samples.
- Some samples contained serum hepatitis, transmissible through contact with infected blood.
- Booker sometimes worked with unhealed cuts on his hands and regularly got blood on his fingers while handling samples.
- Booker developed symptoms in late June 1971 and was diagnosed with serum hepatitis on July 3, 1971; he later died from the disease.
- Evidence showed laboratory technicians in large clinical labs face a higher likelihood of contracting serum hepatitis than other employees and the general public.
- The lab director testified it was unlikely Booker’s exposure occurred outside his work.
- Booker’s dependents sought workers’ compensation death benefits, alleging the disease was a compensable occupational disease.

## Issues

1. For purposes of applying a statutory amendment limited to cases “originating on and after” July 1, 1971, when does an occupational disease case “originate” (exposure/contraction vs. disability or death)?
2. Whether serum hepatitis contracted by a clinical laboratory technician is compensable under the general occupational disease provision as a disease characteristic of and peculiar to the employment and not an ordinary disease of life.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of North Carolina reversed the Court of Appeals and reinstated the Industrial Commission’s award of death benefits.
- The court held an occupational disease case “originates” when the disease produces compensable disability or death, not at first exposure or initial contraction.
- Because Booker’s disability and diagnosis occurred after July 1, 1971, the amended version of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-53(13) governed.
- Under the amended statute, competent evidence supported the Commission’s findings that Booker’s work materially increased his risk of contracting serum hepatitis and caused the disease.
- The Commission’s supported findings were binding on appellate review.

## Legal Principles

- For determining which version of an occupational disease statute applies, a case “originates” at the onset of compensable disability (or death), not at the time of exposure or initial infection.
- Under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-53(13), a non-enumerated disease is compensable if it is proven to be due to causes and conditions characteristic of and peculiar to the employment and is not an ordinary disease of life to which the general public is equally exposed.
- A disease is not excluded as “ordinary” when the employment exposes the worker to a greater risk of contracting it than the general public.
- Causation in occupational disease claims may be established through circumstantial and expert evidence; a single identifiable incident is not required.
- The Industrial Commission’s findings of fact are conclusive on appeal if supported by any competent evidence; appellate courts do not reweigh the evidence.

## Conclusion

The court treated the operative date for occupational disease coverage as the onset of disability or death and held that a laboratory technician’s fatal serum hepatitis was compensable because the employment conditions created a materially greater risk than that faced by the general public, with the Commission’s supported causation findings controlling on appeal.


Booker v. Duke Med. Ctr., 297 N.C. 458, 256 S.E.2d 189 (N.C. 1979)