Chesterfield County/Fire Dept. v. Dunn

I concur in reversing the decision of the commission; however, I do not join in the reasoning stated in the majority’s opinion.

Virginia’s Workers’ Compensation Act defines “injury” to mean “injury by accident.” Code § 65.1-7. Thus, “there is no occasion, as a matter of grammar, to read the phrase as if it referred to ‘an accident,’ and then proceed to conduct a search for ‘the accident.’” IB A. Larson, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation § 37.20 (1987) (emphasis in original text). However, in Morris v. Morris, 238 Va. 578, 385 S.E.2d 858 (1989), the Supreme Court explained that the component of…