Ex parte Opp Health and Rehabilitation, LLC, [Ms. SC-2024-0266, May 23, 2025] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. 2025). On certiorari review, the Court (Bryan, J.; Stewart, C.J., and Shaw, Wise, Sellers, Mendheim, Cook, and McCool, JJ., concur; Lewis, J., recuses) reverses the Court of Civil Appeals judgment reversing the Covington Circuit Court’s judgment on the pleadings in favor of Opp Health and Rehabilitation, LLC (“OHR”) on Rena Meeks’s claim seeking workers’ compensation benefits as a result of allegedly contracting COVID-19 in June 2020 while working for OHR at a nursing home. The Court of Civil Appeals reversed based on Meeks’s nonaccidental-injury theory of recovery and stated that “‘[t]he facts alleged in Meeks’s complaint, if proven, would support a determination that the injuries she alleges she received as a result of contracting COVID-19 are compensable under the Act.’” Ms. *5, quoting 401 So. 3d at 1155.
The Court first reiterates, “‘[o]n certiorari review, this Court accords no presumption of correctness to the legal conclusions of the intermediate appellate court.’ Ex parte Toyota Motor Corp., 684 So. 2d 132, 135 (Ala. 1996).” Ms. * 5. The Court notes that in responding to the motion for judgment on the pleadings, Meeks argued “that COVID-19 is an occupational disease that is compensable under Article 4 of the Act, §§ 25-5-110 through -123, Ala. Code 1975, which concerns compensation for injury or death caused by occupational diseases. That is, Meeks presented a specific theory in support of her workers’ compensation claim – that COVID-19 is an occupational disease under the Act…. On appeal, Meeks argued that her alleged injury caused by COVID-19 is compensable under the Act as a ‘nonaccidental injury’; however, Meeks did not present that argument to the circuit court.” Ms. **3-4.
In reversing, the Court holds “[i]n concluding that it could consider Meeks’s newly made nonaccidental-injury argument, the Court of Civil Appeals observed that ‘the legal theory of compensability she intended to pursue was left open ended’ in her complaint. 401 So. 3d at 1153. However, regardless of Alabama’s liberal pleading standard, see Rule 8(a) and (f), Ala. R. Civ. P., an appellant is not allowed to argue a new legal theory for the first time on appeal.” Ms. *13.