KENTUCKY EMPLOYERS’ MUTUAL INSURANCE v. CLAS COAL CO., INC.; HONORABLE TONYA CLEMONS, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE; TROY STIDHAM; AND WORKERS’ COMPENSATION BOARD
2024-SC-0571-WC
Supreme Court of Kentucky
OCTOBER 23, 2025
RENDERED: OCTOBER 23, 2025; TO BE PUBLISHED;
OPINION OF THE COURT BY JUSTICE KELLER
AFFIRMING
Kеntucky Employers’ Mutual Insurance (“KEMI“) appeals the decision by the Kentucky Court of Appeals (“Court of Appeals“) upholding the Workers’ Compensation Board‘s (“Board“) finding that Kentucky has jurisdiction over a claim by Appellee Troy Stidham (“Stidham“) for work-related hearing loss. While Stidham had been exposed to loud noise working for Clas Coal Company, Inc. (“Clas Coal“) for over sixteen years in Kentucky, his final nine months of loud noise exposure came while wоrking in Alabama. For the reasons set out below, we affirm the decision by the Court of Appeals which affirmed the Board‘s decision to uphold the ALJ‘s finding that the injury occurred on
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Between September 1, 2003, and February 3, 2020, KEMI had issued a workers’ compensation insurance policy to Clas Coal. During this same time frame, Stidham was employed by Clas Coal for sixteen years and one month. In the course of employment with Clas Coal, he worked in a coal mine in Pike County, Kentucky, up until the time that mine closed. His last day working in Kentucky was January 1, 2020. Following the Kentucky mine closure, Stidham continued to work for Clas Coal but had to relocate his work to Alabama. He worked in Alabama for a total of nine months before his retirement from the workforce on October 31, 2020. In both Kentucky and Alabama, Stidham worked mostly as a shuttle car operator, during which time he was constantly exposed to continuous loud noise from the conveyor belt.
Despite using hearing protection every day at work, Stidham began noticing problems with his hearing around 2018 or 2019. He noticed hearing difficulties the most when other people were talking. On August 31, 2021, Dr. Robert Manning, an audiologist in Kentucky, first diagnosed Stidham with hearing loss. Dr. Manning assessed an eight percent whole person impairment to Stidham from hearing loss consistent with long-term exposurе to loud noise. Prior to this date, Stidham had never been treated for hearing loss.
On November 11, 2021, Stidham filed workers’ compensation claims against Clas Coal for hearing loss and coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, listing his date of last exposure as January 1, 2020, the date he last worked in Kentucky. KEMI objected to Stidham‘s claims, arguing in part that Stidham‘s date of last exposure was October 31, 2020, the date that he retired in Alabama.
Stidham was seen by Dr. Brittany Brose, Au.D., a clinicаl audiologist and the University Evaluator, on February 10, 2022. Dr. Brose diagnosed Stidham with hearing loss greater than typical for his age and opined that the loss stemmed from work-related repetitive exposure to hazardous noise over an extended period of time. Dr. Brose assessed a nine percent whole person impairment rating. Dr. Brose later testified at a deposition that she would not expect that level of impairment to result from seven months in an underground coal mine but instead expected it to be caused from much longer exposure.
Dr. Daniel Shumaier evaluated Stidham at the request of Clas Coal on March 28, 2022. Dr. Shumaier assessed a five percent whole person impairment rating stemming from hearing loss due to his long-term exposure from mining.
A hearing was held before an ALJ on August 22, 2023. The ALJ issued its Opinion, Award, and Order on October 19, 2023, dismissing Stidham‘s coal workers’ pneumoconiosis claim but granting Stidham‘s hearing loss claim based on a nine percent whole person impairment rating. The ALJ found that Kentucky had jurisdiction over Stidham‘s hearing loss claim, accepting Stidham‘s contention that January 1, 2020, the last day that Stidham worked for Clas Coal in Kentucky, was the date of injury. The ALJ noted that
Both parties moved fоr reconsideration. In denying these motions, the ALJ explained that she found testimony from Dr. Brose that Stidham‘s noise induced hearing loss “came from a much longer period than approximately seven months of exposure,” and that the “seven-to-nine month period Stidham was allegedly exposed to noise in the workplace after January 1, 2020, was inconsequential,” persuasive.
KEMI appealed the ALJ‘s orders finding KEMI liable for Stidham‘s hearing loss to the Board, аrguing that Kentucky lacked jurisdiction over Stidham‘s hearing loss claim because Stidham‘s last injurious or hazardous exposure to noise was in Alabama. The Board affirmed the ALJ‘s October 19, 2023, Opinion, Award and Order and November 20, 2023, Order on Petition for Reconsideration, explaining that
KEMI appealed to the Court of Appeals, arguing that Kentucky jurisdiction over Stidham‘s occupational hearing loss claim is improper and that his injury date was on October 31, 2020, Stidham‘s last date of employment in Alabama. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Board‘s decision, explicitly finding that extraterritorial coverage pursuant to
Further facts will be developed below as necessary.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
The Court of Appeals conducts a review of the Board‘s findings with the purpose of “correct[ing] the Board only where the Court perceives the Board has overlooked or misconstrued controlling statutes or precedent, or committed an error in assessing the evidence so flagrant as to cause gross injustice.” W. Baptist Hosp. v. Kelly, 827 S.W.2d 685, 687–88 (Ky. 1992). Further review by this Court of the decisions by the Court of Appeals and the Board is meant “to address new or novel questions of statutory construction, or to reconsider precedent when such appears necessary, or to review a question of constitutional magnitude.” Id. at 688.
As to questions of fact, “the ALJ, not this Court and not the Board, has sole discretion to determine the quality, character, and substance of the evidence.” Abbott Labʼys v. Smith, 205 S.W.3d 249, 253 (Ky. App. 2006). However, “we are bound neither by an ALJ‘s decisions on questions of law or an ALJ‘s interpretation and application of the law to the facts. In either case, our standard of review is de novo.” Bowerman v. Black Equip. Co., 297 S.W.3d 858, 866 (Ky. App. 2009). The manifestation date of an injury as it relates to a worker‘s compensation claim is a question of fact to be decided by the ALJ. Ford Motor Co. v. Duckworth, 615 S.W.3d 26, 33 (Ky. 2021).
III. ANALYSIS
On appeal to this Court, the parties do not dispute that Stidham‘s hearing loss came from long-term exposure to noise encountered in his employment with Clas Coal. Instead, the parties dispute when the manifestation date of Stidham‘s injuries occurred for the purposes of determining whether KEMI was the carrier on the risk at the time of injury and, relatedly, whether Kentucky had jurisdiction over Stidham‘s claims. Generally, Kentucky has jurisdiction over injuries which happen inside its borders. See
KEMI contends that the date of injury was either the date of last exposure to hazardous noise (i.e., October 31, 2020) or the date Stidham was first diagnosed with hearing loss (i.e., August 31, 2021), while Stidham asserts that his date of injury was the date he was last injuriously exposed to hazardous noise in Kentucky at a mine operated by Clas Coal (i.e., January 1, 2020).
KEMI argues that jurisdiction over hearing loss claims is determined by the date of last exposure to hazardous noise. In support, KEMI cites to Hale v. CDR Operations, Inc., 474 S.W.3d 129, 138 (Ky. 2015), for Hale‘s propositiоn that “in hearing loss and occupational disease claims—which are quite similar in nature to cumulative trauma because they occur gradually over time—the employer at the time of the last injurious or hazardous exposure is liable.” However, the statutory basis for which Hale relies in making this proposition has since been amended in a material way, limiting Hale‘s applicability to the facts at hand. In support of the above quoted statemеnt, Hale cited
When audiograms and other testing reveal a pattern of hearing loss compatible with that caused by hazardous noise exposure and the employee demonstrates repetitive exposure to hazardous noise in the workplace, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that the hearing impairment is an injury covered by this chapter, and the employer with whom the employee was last injuriously exposed to hazardous noise shall be exclusively liable for benefits.
When audiograms and other testing reveal a pattern of hearing loss compatible with that caused by hazardous noise exposure and the employee demonstrates repetitive exposure to hazardous noise in
the workplace, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that the hearing impairment is an injury covered by this chaptеr, and the employer with whom the employee was last injuriously exposed to hazardous noise for a minimum duration of one (1) year of employment shall be exclusively liable for benefits.
(emphasis added). This language undeniably alters Hale‘s holding that “the employer at the time of the last injurious or hazardous exposure is liable,” Hale, 474 S.W.3d at 138, and instead replaces it with a rebuttable presumption that the last employer with whom a hearing loss claimant had been employed for at least a year while being exposed to hazardous noise shall be liable. This is a clear directive guiding when the hearing loss injury is statutorily deemed to occur for liability purposes. Therefore, authority relying on the previous version of
KEMI asserts that the amendments to
As the Board pointed out in its Opinion Affirming the ALJ,
The 2018 law amendment to
KRS 342.7305(4) imposed a one-year working requirement with an employer before that employer could be exclusively liable to pay benefits. To disregard the wording and intent of this law because Stidham was transferred out-of-state and worked for a short period of time is illogical. We note Clas [Coal] would be liable if Stidham switched employers within the state but ceased working within one year. This would be true even if he continued to be repetitivеly exposed to injurious workplace noise at the new employer. Hence, the thrust of [Clas Coal‘s] argument regarding the manifestation date would not shield them in that scenario. . . .The parties stipulated Stidham worked in Alabama for just nine months. Clas [Coal] was the employer when Stidham worked the previous 16 years in Kentucky and then in Alabama for nine months. Therefore, any other employer that Stidham would have begun employment with in 2020 could not be held liable for hearing loss since he retired within one year. The fact that Stidham
remained employed by Clas [Coal], a Virginia company no longer principally localized in Kentucky, does not shield them from liability, as Stidham had a compensable claim when he last worked in Kentucky.
We agree. “The ALJ, as the finder of fact, and not the reviewing court, has the sole authority to determine the quality, character, and substance of the evidence.” Square D Co. v. Tipton, 862 S.W.2d 308, 309 (Ky. 1993) (citing Paramount Foods, Inc. v. Burkhardt, 695 S.W.2d 418 (Ky. 1985)). To overturn the factual findings of the ALJ, a reviewing court must find that the ALJ‘s findings are not supported by substantial evidence. Wolf Creek Collieries v. Crum, 673 S.W.2d 735, 736 (Ky. App. 1984). Here, the ALJ weighed the evidence and determined that Stidham was injured as of January 1, 2020. The ALJ reached this conclusion by considering testimony from Stidham regarding his onset of symptoms, testimony from physicians that his pattern of hearing loss was a result of long-term exposure to noise, testimony from Dr. Brose that the short time that Stidham worked in Alabama was inconsequential to his hearing loss, and the lack of testimony from a physician stating that Stidham‘s time in Alabama caused his hearing loss to worsen. Here, the ALJ‘s findings are supported by substantial evidence in the record, and we must therefore uphold the Court of Appeal‘s decision affirming the Board‘s decision which upheld the ALJ‘s finding that Stidham was injured on January 1, 2020. KEMI‘s contention that the Court of Appeals applied the injury date of January 1, 2020, solely becausе it was the date Stidham selected on his application for benefits, overlooks the great weight of the evidence supporting such a finding.
Nevertheless, KEMI argues that
Hicks, a case holding that extraterritorial coverage did not apply to injuries sustained in West Virginia, is likewisе distinguishable from the facts at hand because, again, the injury occurred in a different state. 686 S.W.3d at 218. Hicks worked in Kentucky from 1996 until August 2017, at which time he continued to work for the same company but in West Virginia. Id. Hicks worked in West Virginia until he was acutely injured in West Virginia on January 10, 2019. Id. While Hicks included a claim for cumulative hearing loss, the parties agreed that Hicks was injured in West Virginia, and this was never debated. Id. at 221. Instead, the principal issue was whether Hicks’ employment was “principally locаlized” in Kentucky so as to place him under the purview of the extraterritorial statute. Id. That is a separate issue than the one before us, where the injuries occurred in Kentucky. Hicks is therefore of little guidance to the case at hand.
We will now address KEMI‘s other assertions. While KEMI is correct in its statement that “[j]urisdiction is a threshold issue that must be resolved before assessing compensability,” Kentucky has jurisdiction here because the injury occurred here. See Letcher Cty. Bd. of Educ. v. Hall, 671 S.W.3d 374, 379 (Ky. 2023). Thus, an analysis of compensability is nоt premature. Cases such as Amax Coal Co., 748 S.W.2d 158, and Eck Miller Transportation Corp. v. Wagers, 833 S.W.2d 854 (Ky. App. 1992), which do not address hearing loss claims, provide limited instruction to us on when a hearing loss injury occurs because the timing of hearing loss injuries for liability purposes is guided by its own statute,
It is important to note that, contrary to what the Court of Appeals implies in their Opinion,
that “the employer with whom the employee was last injuriously exposed to hazardous noise for a minimum duration of one (1) year of employment shall be exclusively liable for benefits.” This means that, should the weight оf the evidence dictate otherwise, the ALJ may determine that liability falls with an employer other than the last employer with whom the claimant was employed while being injuriously exposed to hazardous noise. This was not the case here.
Lastly, what constitutes as an injurious exposure is not changed by the amendments to
IV. CONCLUSION
In sum, the ALJ found that Stidham‘s hearing loss injury occurred on January 1, 2020. This finding was supported by substantial evidence, and the Court of Appeals was correct in affirming the Board‘s decision upholding the ALJ. Because Stidham‘s injury occurred while he was employed by Clas Coal in Kentucky, Kentucky has jurisdiction over Stidham‘s hearing loss claim. Because KEMI was the insurer for Clas Coal on Januаry 1, 2020, it is the carrier at risk on Stidham‘s hearing loss claim. Thus, for slightly different
All sitting. All concur.
COUNSEL FOR APPELLANT, KEMI:
Barry Lewis
Lewis & Lewis Law Offices
COUNSEL FOR APPELLEE, CLAS COAL CO., INC.:
Edward Lee Jones
COUNSEL FOR APPELLEE, TROY STIDHAM:
Ronnie Merel Slone
ADMINISTRATIVE LAW JUDGE:
Hon. Tonya Clemons
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION BOARD:
Michael Wayne Alvey, Chairman