Smith v. American and Efird Mills

CLARK, Judge.

This case presents us with the question of what compensation an employee may recover under the Worker’s Compensation Act [the Act] for disability due to an occupational disease which at its inception was only partially debilitating, but which developed over time into a totally disabling condition. The employer argues that there is no evidence that the employee’s condition progressed from partial disability to total. We disagree.

The Industrial Commission found as a fact that after being forced to leave the Mill, the employee had been able to work from 1968 to 1974 and again in…