S. H. Kress & Co. v. Burkes

• Decision Date: 04 January 1944
• Citation: 16 So.2d 106,153 Fla. 868
• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Parties: S. H. KRESS & CO. et al. v. BURKES.

16 So.2d 106

153 Fla. 868

S. H. KRESS & CO. et al. v. BURKES.

Florida Supreme Court

January 4, 1944

Appeal from Circuit Court, Hillsborough County; L. L. Parks judge.

McKay MacFarlane, Jackson & Ferguson, of Tampa, for appellants.

Hampton Bull & Crom, of Tampa, for appellee.

ADAMS, Justice.

The question presented by this appeal is whether appellee sustained an injury by accident as defined by your Workmen's Compensation Act. F.S.A. § 440.01 et seq.

Appellee was working in a bakery mixing dough, baking bread and scrubbing pans. About a year before the hearing she began to suffer pain in her hands and noticed some knots forming on the back of her hands. The knots enlarged gradually; she bandaged her hands but they did not improve.

She sustained no blow to her hands; did not remember the day the knots first appeared; she first felt pain and then noticed the knots. The examining physician testified:

'The patient came to me complaining of discomfort in the region of both wrists. She stated that in making bread both of her wrists got sore and some lumps had come on the back of her wrists or hands as she said, but on the wrists proper. The affected parts were examined carefully and a diagnosis of tenosynovitis of the extensor tendons of both wrists, with ganglion formation in the region of both wrists was made.'

'This condition undoubtedly was brought on by constant and repeated strain of the parts involved, occasioned by the type of work the woman had done over a period of months.'

This case comes here from a judgment of the circuit court reversing a finding of the Industrial Commission and holding that appellee sustained an injury by accident as defined by our statute. Paragraph (19), Section 440.02, Florida Statutes 1941, F.S.A., and construed by our opinion in Duff Hotel Co. v. Ficara et al., 150 Fla. 442, 7 So.2d 790. A presumption of law favors the claimant before the Commission. See Sec. 440.26, Florida Statutes 1941. However, on appeal here the judgment appealed from is presumed to be just and proper until error is made to appear. The lower court relied on our opinion in Duff Hotel Co. v. Ficara, supra. It must be borne in mind that in that case the injury was hernia, which injury is regulated by a special section of the compensation statute. Sec. 440.15, Florida Statutes 1941. We also said that 'accident' as used in this act would not be given a strict or literal definition, however, we cannot overlook the definition given by the Legislature. The definition given by the act is: "Accident' shall mean only an unexpected or unusual event, happening suddenly.' Sec. 440.02, Fla.Stat.1941, F.S.A. It was held by us without opinion in Rayonier, Inc., v. Lang,

Page 107.

Fla., 14 So.2d 569, that an injury by accident under this act was sustained where deceased was poisoned by the use of a coal-tar paint causing an illness lasting about sixteen days and resulting in death....