Booker v. Duke Medical Center

Duke Medical Center (Duke) (defendant) employed Robert Booker as a laboratory technician to analyze blood samples in Duke’s clinical chemistry laboratory. Some of the samples Booker analyzed were infected with serum hepatitis, a liver disease contractable by direct contact with infected blood. Booker liked to garden and occasionally came to work with unhealed cuts on his hands. Although Booker was careful while analyzing blood samples, he regularly spilled blood on his fingers. In July of 1971, Booker was diagnosed with serum hepatitis. Booker subsequently died from the disease, and his dependents (plaintiffs) sought workers’-compensation death benefits from Duke. In proceedings on the benefits application, the head of the laboratory testified that Booker had handled many blood samples containing hepatitis and that Booker likely had not been exposed to hepatitis anywhere other than at Duke. Two other doctors testified that laboratory technicians in large clinical laboratories faced a greater likelihood of contracting serum hepatitis than other hospital employees or the general public. The North Carolina Industrial Commission awarded benefits to Booker’s dependents, but the North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed. The court held, among other things, that serum hepatitis was not a compensable occupational disease under North Carolina’s workers’-compensation statute. Booker’s dependents appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court.