The Court of Appeals of Virginia has decided that a city must pay workers' compensation benefits for a police officer's heart disease despite an expired statute of limitations and that officer's long history of heart issues. The case is City of Newport News v. Kahikina, No. 1372-19-1, 2020 Va. App. LEXIS 49 (Ct. App. Feb. 25, 2020).
In 2004, Joey Kahikina, a police officer with the City of Newport News, began having heart problems. In October of 2011, he began experiencing irregular heartbeats at work, saw a cardiologist, and was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. The diagnosing doctor attributed the irregular heartbeats to his consumption of a Red Bull the previous day. Kahikina was allowed to perform "sedentary work only" until January 2012. In 2015, Kahikina was hospitalized for chest pain and diagnosed with "unstable angina" as well as hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol.
On June 24, 2017, Kahinkina went to the emergency room due to chest pain that he experienced after responding to a custody dispute while working. He was advised to transition to a less stressful job. Later in 2017, he filed a claim for benefits with the Workers' Compensation Commission, listing his heart as his injured body part and "cardiomyopathy" as his occupational disease. He listed June 24, 2017, as both the date he was injured, and the date the doctor told him the injury was caused by his work.
The city of Newport News appealed the decision and argued that the statute of limitations should have started rolling with the first diagnosis of cardiomyopathy in 2011, which would indicate that his claim was not timely filed, and he was not eligible to invoke the occupational disease presumption in Virginia code § 65.2-402.
The appellate court affirmed the WC commission's decision. Despite the city's argument that Kahikina was aware of his heart issues prior to his hospitalization and diagnosis in 2015, the court stated that the city failed to show that Kahikina knew that his heart disease arose out of and in the course of his employment. SInce he was not aware of that causal connection until 2017, he did not need to file for benefits until that time. The court also noted that his medical records did now show that the condition was attributed to his employment until 2017, as prior records related his heart disease to his lifestyle choices. The court also dismissed the city's argument that Kahikina was not entitled to invoke the §65.2-402 presumption, and found that evidence existed that the work-related heart disease caused Kahikina's disability.
Editor's Note: Va. Code Ann. §65.2-402 creates a rebuttable presumption for police officers that a causal connection exists between hypertension or heart disease and employment. Under this presumption, when a claimant brings a claim, he only needs to prove his employment in one of the several enumerated occupations, and the resulting disability from one of several enumerated diseases.
In this case, the claimant and his doctor did not discuss the possibility that the heart problems stemmed from workplace stress until 2017. Had they established that earlier but still failed to file until 2017, the court probably would have sided with the city. This case is simply a reminder to file claims as soon as possible after discovery of evidence that an injury or illness is causally connected to a workplace.