The Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the injuries suffered by a police officer who claimed he was injured while acting the role of a suspect in a training exercise are compensable, despite the officer not being able to pinpoint the exact moment of his injury.  

Charlottesville, Virginia, police officer William Sclafani in 2017 took part in a SWAT team training activity, repeatedly put on the ground, handcuffed with his hands behind his back and then picked up while still in handcuffs, according to documents in City of Charlottesville v. Sclafani, filed in Richmond. 

During the training, Mr. Sclafani experienced some discomfort, but there was never any significant pain. However, at the end of the day, he discovered he could not straighten his left arm, and as the evening progressed found he could no longer move his arm up or down. He reported he did not feel any pain until the next morning, according to documents.  

Mr. Sclafani eventually required surgery for rotator cuff tears and traumatic impingement syndrome, and filed a workers compensation claim, which the City denied arguing Mr. Sclafani “cannot identify the specific incident that led to his injury,” documents state.  

However, Mr. Sclafani testified that at one time he "was picked up a little weird" and "felt some discomfort." As a result, both the state Workers’ Compensation Court and a Court of Appeals ruled the injury compensable. The City argued on appeal that because Mr. Sclafani “cannot identify the specific incident that led to his injury, he failed to meet his burden.” 

Although the state Supreme Court agreed there is no proven precise moment of injury, it found that evidence of an injury at some point during training “was uncontradicted and we cannot say that it was inherently incredible or inconsistent with the other facts in the record.” 

The court wrote that the city “focused on the fact that Sclafani admitted that he did not immediately feel a pop or crack or any intense pain at the time the injury occurred” and yet “offered no evidence to establish that such symptoms would have suddenly manifested as a result of the injury suffered by Sclafani.”