Camps v. Taylor , 892 P.2d 633 ( 1995 )

OPINION

WATT, Justice:

The sole issue to be decided in this proceeding is whether a elaim for workers’ compensation benefits filed on the second anniversary of the claimant’s accidental injury is barred by the statute of limitations set forth at 85 O.S.1991 § 43(A). We answer this question in the negative and hold that petitioner’s claim, filed exactly two years after the date of his accident, was timely.

SUMMARY OF FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On February 20, 1989, Jerrell B. Camps, petitioner, was injured when he slipped and fell on some ice while attempting to guide a trailer onto a truck. He filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits on February 20,1991, naming both Mercer Transportation and Loyal Taylor d/b/a Taylor Truck as respondents. Mercer denied that petitioner was in its employ at the time of the accident and asserted that the claim was barred by the statute of limitations.

The Workers’ Compensation Court, Honorable Kimberly J. West, trial judge, ruled petitioner was not an employee of Mercer at the time of the accident and that the two-year statute of limitations, 85 O.S.1991 § 43(A), expired the day before petitioner filed his claim. A three judge panel sustained the trial court’s decision. On appeal, petitioner raised both issues ruled upon below. The Court of Appeals sustained the lower court’s ruling that the statute of limitations had run on petitioner’s claim, but did not address whether petitioner was an employee of Mercer at the time of the accident. This Court granted petitioner’s request for a writ of certiorari on October 31, 1994.

DISCUSSION

Title 85 O.S.1991 § 43(A) provides, inter alia:

The right to claim compensation under the Workers’ Compensation Act shall be forever barred unless, within two (2) years after the date of the accidental injury or death, a claim for compensation is filed with the Workers’ Compensation Court.

This Court has held that the time limitation in which to file a claim for a single-event injury¹ under § 43 begins to run from the time the worker is charged with legal awareness of the injury. Seaton v. Plasti-Mat, Inc., 830 P.2d 1365, 1367 (Okla.1992). That point is coincidental with the time the worker knew or should have known of the injury. Id. In the present case, it is not disputed that petitioner knew he was injured on the date of the accident. Seaton and its progeny ² did not, however, address the timeliness of a workers’ compensation claim filed on the anniversary date of an accidental injury, nor did they define the manner in which the time limit of § 43(A) is to be calculated. Furthermore, neither the Workers’ Compensation Act, 85 O.S.1991 § 1, et seq., nor the Rules of the Workers’ Compensation Court, 85 O.S. 1991 Ch. 4, App., specify how § 43(A)’s time limit is to be computed, and this Court has never before been called upon to do so. We are therefore guided by Oklahoma’s common law and decisions from other courts in deciding this case of first impression.

An analogous issue was presented in Winn v. Nilsen, 670 P.2d 588 (Okla.1983), where this Court delineated how a five-year contractual lease term was to be computed. We began by reiterating that the word “year” is statutorily defined at 25 O.S.1981 § 23 to mean a calendar year. We then held:

When, as here, the time [specified in a contract or statute] is used in the context to effect a simple identification of a particular time period, an anniversary-to-anniversary period is indicated.

Last century’s judicial decisions applied different rules of computation when the time commenced to run from (a) a day certain and when it began (b) from the happening of an event. In the latter instance, the day on which the act was done or to be done or the event happened was included in computing the time.

The distinction is no longer recognized. The rule now universally applied is that in calculating the period of time in which a contractual or statutory duty is to be performed, ... the day or event that marks the commencement point of the period [ ] is excluded and the ... terminal day of the period [] is included.

Id. at 590 (footnotes omitted). Under this common law rule, the Court concluded that the five-year lease which was executed on February 16, 1977, “commenced the day following its execution (February 17, 1977) and ended at midnight on February 16,1982 — the terminal point of its fifth anniversary date.” Id. at 591.

Decisions from other courts support the above rule. In Simon v. Wisconsin Marine Inc., 947 F.2d 446 (10th Cir.1991), the plaintiff was injured while using a lawnmower on September 16,1986, and filed suit against the manufacturer on September 16, 1988. The court held that the plaintiff’s action was filed within the two-year statute of limitations:

The ancient rule was that in computing a period of time from the occurrence of a given event, the day the event occurred was included. The great weight of modern authority, however, excludes the day the event happens

Id. at 447 (citations omitted). See also Caldwell v. State, 57 Okla.Crim. 320, 48 P.2d 356 (1935) (“The time within which an act is to be done should be computed by excluding the first day and including the last....”); Baker v. Sisk, 1 F.R.D. 232 (E.D.Okla.1938) (Applying Oklahoma law, the court implicitly held that the two-year statute of limitations at issue therein ran from December 24,1935, to December 24, 1937).

Applying either Oklahoma’s common law or the “great weight of modern authority” discussed in Simon, the date a claimant suffers a single-event injury is excluded in calculating the statute of limitations of § 43(A). Applying this rule of law to the present case, it is apparent that petitioner filed his claim for workers’ compensation within the two-year statute of limitations set forth in § 43(A). The day petitioner suffered his injury, February 20,1989, is not included in computing the two-year period within which he must have filed his claim. Thus, the statute of limitations began to run on February 21, 1989, and expired on February 20, 1991, the day petitioner filed his claim. Petitioner’s claim was timely filed.

As previously stated, the Court of Appeals did not address the correctness of the lower court’s holding that petitioner was not an employee of Mercer Transportation at the time of his accidental injury. This issue was properly preserved and presented by petitioner on appeal. We therefore remand this case to the Court of Appeals with instructions to address the issue of petitioner’s employment. See Rule 3.15 of the Rules on Practice and Procedure in the Court of Appeals and on Certiorari to that Court, 12 O.S.Supp.1993, Ch. 15, App. 3, and Hough v. Leonard, 867 P.2d 438, 445 (Okla.1993).

CONCLUSION

The date a single-event accidental injury occurs is not included in calculating the two-year statute of limitations period for filing a claim for workers’ compensation benefits under 85 O.S.1991 § 43. Petitioner’s claim, filed on the second anniversary of his single-event injury, was timely filed.

Certiorari previously granted. The opinion of the Court of Appeals is vacated and this cause is remanded to that court for further proceedings.

ALMA WILSON, C.J., and HODGES, LAVENDER, SIMMS, OPALA, SUMMERS and WATT, JJ., concur. KAUGER, V.C.J., concurs in result. HARGRAVE, J., concurs in part, dissents in part.

1 . A "single-event injury,” which results from one particular event, is distinguishable from a “cumulative-effect injury,” which results from repeated micro-trauma occurring over an extended period of time. McDonald v. Time-DC, Inc., 773 P.2d 1252, 1254 n. 2 (Okla.1989).

2 . See, e.g., Hackler v. Speed Parts Warehouse, 775 P.2d 1362 (Okla.1989); McDonald, supra note 1; Stillwater Floral Co. v. Murray, 380 P.2d 694 (Okla.1962). In each of these cases the Court was concerned with defining the point in time that a worker should be charged with legal awareness of present, as well as potential, harm resulting from a single-event injury.