Unfortunately, under Virginia law, it is not enough to simply show that your work activities caused your injury. This results from two basic definitions, one legislative and one judicial. First, in enacting the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act (the Act), the legislature defined the term ‘injury’ to mean “only injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment or occupational disease.” Second, in interpreting the Act, courts have defined the phrase ‘injury by accident’ to require proof of an identifiable incident or sudden precipitating event that occurs at some reasonably definite time and which brings about an obvious sudden mechanical or structural change in the body. The net effect of these definitions is to exclude from the protections of the Act all work-related conditions that are gradually incurred or the result of repetitive motions.
John’s sad story plays out every day on job sites and in courtrooms throughout Virginia. When workers’ bodies break down as a direct result of the stress and strain of their job duties, they cannot look to our workers’ compensation laws for help. With the sole exception of the hand/wrist condition known as carpal tunnel syndrome, the legislature has not seen fit to fix this deficiency in the Act’s coverage.