Background
Larry Stowell, a Goodwill retail clerk, sought workers’ compensation benefits after he passed out while sweeping at work on July 1, 2025, and fell into a clothing rack. He reported dizziness, a possible head injury, and pain in his left elbow and right arm. The emergency-room physician identified injuries to his left elbow and right arm as occupational.
Stowell later asserted that excessive heat in the store, caused by a malfunctioning air conditioner, made him pass out. Goodwill’s store manager stated that Stowell said he became dizzy and fell, but she did not recall other heat complaints that morning. The claim administrator rejected the claim, but the Workers’ Compensation Board of Review reversed, found the injury compensable, and remanded for determination of compensable conditions and temporary total disability benefits.
The Court’s Holding
The Intermediate Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that the Board was not clearly wrong in finding, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Stowell sustained a personal injury in the course of and resulting from his employment.
The Board could credit Stowell’s unrebutted account that excessive workplace heat caused him to pass out and fall. The absence of other reported heat complaints did not refute that account, and no medical evidence contradicted the emergency-room physician’s occupational-injury finding. The court also rejected Goodwill’s reliance on Hood v. Lincare Holdings, Inc., concluding that Hood’s neutral-risk analysis did not control this slip, trip, and fall-type case. The court further held that the Board could find the claim compensable before identifying the precise compensable conditions.
Key Takeaways
- An employee may establish compensability for a fall caused by excessive workplace heat when the evidence supporting that account is unrebutted.
- The lack of complaints from other employees does not, by itself, disprove a claimant’s account of workplace heat exposure.
- A claim may be held compensable and remanded for later identification of the specific compensable conditions and benefits.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the deferential review applied to Board of Review factual findings in West Virginia workers’ compensation appeals. Employers challenging a compensability finding need evidence that affirmatively undermines the claimant’s account or the supporting medical evidence.
It also confirms that a compensability ruling need not await a final diagnosis of every covered condition when the claimant has established an occupational injury.