A food worker in Illinois sought benefits for an illness he claimed was related to his job duties but was denied because he could not substantiate that his claim was work-related.

Michael Durbin worked for Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM), an agricultural food processor, for 30 years. He claimed that in 2003 he began to suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and “popcorn worker’s lung” because of irritants at work. His workplace used an artificial butter flavoring that he claimed caused his nasal passages to burn when he opened canisters of the substance. He never reported any issues with the flavoring to his employer. He retired in 2003 and filed for benefits in 2004. The condition popcorn worker’s lung can occur when people work with food flavorings that contain diacetyl. Durbin told the courts he was not sure if the butter flavoring used at his company contained diacetyl. Flavoring exposure could happen to people who work at food processing factories that handle things like popcorn, snack foods, candies, etc. or even those who work in restaurants.

Durbin was a smoker and testified that he had a history of asthma which he said got worse when he retired from his job, so much so that he could not do normal activities like yard work without experiencing breathing difficulties. He claimed he did not have that problem before his exposure. His mother had been diagnosed with COPD before her death.

An employee who had similar job duties as Durbin testified that he probably would not have been exposed to much, if any, diacetyl in his duties. The butter flavoring that Durbin claimed caused his exposure made up two to three percent of the company’s business, so employees were not working with it all that often. The employee acknowledged that he did not know the full extent of Durbin’s specific job duties. Durbin’s physician, Dr. Gumprecht was a pulmonologist who diagnosed Durbin with COPD, saying that he had read an article about a link between butter flavoring and bronchiolitis in workers who were employed at a microwave popcorn manufacturing plant. He said that based on that article and other literature he did not dispute the link between working with butter flavoring and lung disease, and that even by smelling the flavoring Mr. Durbin may have been exposed. The independent medical examiner, Dr. McCunney, looked at Durbin’s case and thought that his condition was very consistent with someone who has a history of smoking. Dr. McCunney also noted that the processes at ADM were much different than the popcorn producing plant- the tanks were sealed much tighter and employees only worked with the butter flavoring on a very minimal basis and not all the time like the popcorn employees did. Diacetyl levels measured at ADM were 450 times lower than they were measured at the popcorn plant.

A claim arbitrator said that Durbin failed to prove that his illness was caused by exposure at work and he was denied benefits for an occupational disease. He appealed, saying that the Workers’ Compensation Commission barred him from entering his physician’s causation opinion and they erred in saying he failed to prove his case. The appellate court noted that the physician’s opinion was not entered but they also said the opinion was not one that was generally accepted by the scientific community. The appellate court also ruled the doctor’s opinion inadmissible. They upheld the earlier decision that Durbin failed to prove that his condition was related to workplace exposure or to a butter flavoring used at his place of employment.