Wesley Lee worked at Enka during the early part of the company’s existence.1 He worked in the spinning department in their acid room and was required to clean tanks which held various chemicals. Only a year and six months into working at Enka, he developed tuberculosis in the lungs. Wesley Lee then chose to file a lawsuit in the fall of 1937 against the American Enka Corporation to, “recover damages for personal injuries suffered by the plaintiff which resulted from a disease, to-wit: tuberculosis, which plaintiff contracted while at work as an employee of the defendant, American Enka Corporation…”2 The case was first filed in civil court, rejected, and then appealed to the State of North Carolina where the decision was upheld.
The lawsuit has many parts but it must be noted that, “…it became and was necessary for the defendant to use said sulphuric acid and other chemicals in the treatment of wood pulp and other fibre which they thereby converted in rayon or artificial silk.”3 Lee’s lawyer argued that Enka failed to notify Wesley Lee of the dangerous fumes emitted from this process.4 The court determined the Workmen’s Compensation Act invalid in this situation because Lee’s tuberculosis was not considered an accident.5 The State of North Carolina cited his failure to accept the Act as binding in the case there was negligence on the company’s end, when he became employed by the American Enka Corporation.6 The details from the final appeal to the Supreme Court of North Carolina are below.
Case typescript from Wesley Lee v. American Enka Corporation and Fred Baker, State Archives of North Carolina, Supreme Court Record Group, Original Cases File, Fall, 1937, 37F-27.
While this specific court case did not change anything as far as the Workmen’s Compensation Act and a safer environment for workers, it affected the company and was one of multiple cases they faced. Despite this lawsuit being a worker vs. company case, Enka’s legacy as a positive place to be never changed. Many of the workers and their families continued to remember the Enka Mill Village as a happy environment, as one former resident recalled during an interview.
