Supreme Court To Consider Arguments on Major Cause Issue

In May, 2008, the COCA addressed the issue of major cause in the case of American Airlines v. Crabb, _ OK CIV APP _, _ P.3d _. The trial court ruling for the claimant was reversed, and the Supreme Court has accepted a request to review the COCA decision.

When the legislature adopted the 2005 major reforms, it inserted the term "major cause" into the Act. The provision states "[m]ajor cause means the predominate [sic] cause of the resulting injury or illness." An injury is compensable if it causes harm to the body and if the employment is the major cause of the specific injury or illness. 85 O.S. §3(13)a.

"Major cause" is a seemingly simple yet inscrutable term that defies definition using traditional analysis. Major cause is predominate cause; and predominant is a synonym for major. Thus use of a dictionary or thesaurus is futile and leads to circular reasoning.

I will not describe the details of the COCA case or its conclusions. If the Supreme Court issues an opinion, it will supercede the COCA opinion and become the controlling law on major cause. But if you are really interested, I have posted the COCA opinion on Scribd, the online document repository.

Stay tuned for breaking news. In the meantime we can wrestle with the questions: what does it mean? what did the legislature intend? will our decision-making be altered? I will post an update as soon as the Supreme Court opinion is posted.