Allied Fibers v. Rhodes

I agree with the majority that the Supreme Court’s holding in The Stenrich Group v. Jemmott, 251 Va. 186, 467 S.E.2d 795 (1996), compels us to hold that sensorineural hearing loss caused by prolonged exposure to noise in the workplace is not a disease. I reach this conclusion, not because hearing loss is *106inconsistent with a definition of disease that the Supreme Court has set forth, but because Jemmott classifies “job-related impairments arising from repetitive motion or cumulative trauma ” as gradually incurred injuries. Id. at 199, 467 S.E.2d at 802 (emphasis added). Accordingly, because…