Crescent Wharf & Warehouse Co. v. Cyr

• Decision Date: 15 December 1952
• Docket Number: No. 13163.,13163.
• Parties: CRESCENT WHARF & WAREHOUSE CO. et al. v. CYR et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

200 F.2d 633 (1952)

CRESCENT WHARF & WAREHOUSE CO. et al. v. CYR et al.

No. 13163.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

December 15, 1952.

Stephen J. Grogan, Los Angeles, Cal., for appellant.

Walter S. Binns, U. S. Atty., and Clyde C. Downing, Asst. U. S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal. (William S. Tyson, Sol. of Labor, Ward E. Boote, Asst. Sol. of Labor, Herbert P. Miller and James Edward Hughes, Attys., U. S. Dept. of Labor, Washington, D. C., of counsel), for appellees Cyr & Pillsbury.

Before STEPHENS and ORR, Circuit Judges, and McCORMICK, District Judge.

McCORMICK, District Judge.

Appellants, as complainants in the District Court, by appropriate proceedings sought to enjoin a compensation order and award of death benefits made by Albert J. Cyr, an accredited Deputy Commissioner under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act¹ to Betty Anderson, the widow of Robert Lee Anderson, deceased, whose death occurred while he was employed by Crescent Wharf & Warehouse Company, a corporation, as a longshoreman on board the U.S.S.S. Oglethorpe at Los Angeles Harbor. Appellant Pacific Employers Insurance Company, a corporation, is a compensation insurance carrier of the employer.

The claim for compensation which was filed by the widow was contested by the employer and insurance carrier on the ground that the deceased came to his death through cause of a heart condition and not as the result of any injury or accident or anything connected with his employment. Both sides offered evidence with respect to the issue at a hearing conducted by the Deputy Commissioner on December 5, 1950, and at a continued hearing on December 20, 1950, and upon all the evidence before him the Deputy Commissioner issued the questioned compensation order whereby on January 16, 1951, he awarded death benefits to the widow.

The interposition by mandatory injunction of the court below was asked by complainants against the Deputy Commissioner for the reason, as complainants alleged, that it is not in accordance with law because based upon an erroneous conclusion of fact or an absence of facts to justify the requisite ultimate determination by the Deputy Commissioner that Robert Lee Anderson's death was the result of an injury "arising out of and in the course of employment". 33 U.S.C.A. § 902(2).

The cause was duly submitted to the District Court on the official report of all proceedings and exhibits before Deputy Commissioner Cyr which eventuated in his award. A judgment that complainants take nothing by reason of their libel for injunction, and that it be dismissed with costs to defendants was docketed and entered in the court below. It is from such judgment that this appeal was taken.

Appellants designate the sole point on appeal as follows: That the compensation order is not supported by any substantial evidence, the entire record showing that Robert Lee Anderson died of heart disease and that there is no evidence whatsoever by any medical witness, either oral or by a written report, which establishes any causal connection between the heart disease of decedent Robert Lee Anderson and said decedent's employment.

The epitomized facts adduced at the initial hearing show that deceased sustained a severe heart attack around 3:00 a.m. on August 12, 1950, while working with fellow longshoremen in loading the U.S.S.S. Oglethorpe. He died from this attack at 6:30 a.m. the same day. There was medical testimony offered by appellants herein to the effect that the deceased had hypertensive heart deficiency and severe arteriosclerosis in October of 1949, which was professionally noticed by a physician while then primarily treating Anderson on an industrial basis for an injured toe. The hypertensive treatment alleviated Anderson's heart condition somewhat and Anderson continued work as a longshoreman without any medical attention until brought into the emergency room at a hospital in Long Beach closely following his collapse while working on the Oglethorpe on August 12, 1950.

Unsworn ex parte written medical statements by the two physicians who attended Anderson after the fatal event aboard the Oglethorpe, which the Deputy Commissioner admitted in evidence showed that Anderson was then obviously in extremis with a very high hypertension, left ventricular failure and pulmonary edema, and that in their opinion the immediate cause of death was hypertensive heart disease, without any evidence before such attending doctors of contributing causes which might be secondary to Anderson's work. There was unconfirmed hearsay history of Anderson's having been a chronic heavy drinker, and upon being questioned as to the nature of Anderson's illness, some unnamed man who claimed to have been working with Anderson, stated that Anderson was standing beside one of the hatches into the hold, when suddenly his knees crumpled and he fell to the deck backwards. One of such doctors made out the death certificate, which lists the cause of Anderson's death as "Hypertensive heart disease — 1 yr." No autopsy was made and no medical reports were submitted by the claimant in the hearings before the Deputy Commissioner.

The claimant, Mrs. Anderson, testified that her husband, the deceased, had eaten his regular meals and slept his normal period the day before his death; that he had normally gone about his routine activities and outside chores around home and had not complained of being sick for several days before the incident aboard the Oglethorpe; that she had ridden with him in their car part of the way to his work that evening and that he had not complained of being sick or not feeling well except that he had been for three nights working very hard and was very tired; that as far as she k...