Asphalt Materials Co. v. Coleman

• Decision Date: 04 December 1967
• Docket Number: No. 5--4362,5--4362
• Citation: 420 S.W.2d 921,243 Ark. 646
• Parties: ASPHALT MATERIALS COMPANY, Inc., Appellant, v. Hugo E. COLEMAN, Appellee,
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 921

420 S.W.2d 921

243 Ark. 646

ASPHALT MATERIALS COMPANY, Inc., Appellant, v. Hugo E. COLEMAN, Appellee,

No. 5--4362.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

Dec. 4, 1967.

Bridges, Young, Matthews & Davis, Pine Bluff, for appellant.

John Harris Jones, Pine Bluff, for appellee.

BROWN, Justice.

This is a workmen's compensation case. Appellee, Hugo E. Coleman claims temporary total disability as the result of a heart attack on July 12, 1966. His claim was denied by the commission, and that finding was reversed by the trial court. The only issue on appeal is whether there was any substantial evidence of a causal connection between the claimant's work and the heart attack.

For some nine years Coleman, 48 years of age, had been employed by appellant, The company was in the business of asphalting streets, driveways, and parking facilities. In that operation an asphalt finishing machine was used to spread hot asphalt mix. Coleman's principal job was to stand on a platform at the rear of the mixing machine and keep the valves, which controlled the flow of asphalt, properly adjusted to spread the mix evenly. Immediately in front of his platform were two fire boxes in which the heat was generated to keep the asphalt at about 300 . The asphalt machine had a capacity of seven and one-half tons. Coleman was also classified as a foreman in charge of the spreading crew in the absence of his supervisor. Those responsibilities were not too exacting because his supervisor testified the men in the crew knew what to do and how to do it.

July 12 was a hot summer day, with temperature approximately 100 , and the crew worked that morning asphalting a parking lot. At 12:30 p.m. Coleman took an hour off for lunch and went home in the company's pickup truck. He returned to the job site at approximately 1:30, and at about the time he alighted from the truck he experienced a pain in the chest. he was taken to the hospital and was found to have suffered a heart attack.

It is not contended that Coleman experienced any unusual stress or strain on the job on July 12, or at any other date. Some two weeks prior to that date he left the job, complaining of a pain in the stomach, and did not return to work until July ⁵.

Three doctors gave medical testimony. One doctor was called by the claimant, and two doctors by the respondent. They were in agreement on a diagnosis of arteriosclerotic heart disease with coronary occlusion and posterior myocardial infarction. The claimant's doctor found a causal connection between the work performed on July 12 and the heart attack; the conclusions of the respondent's doctors were to the opposite effect.

The claimant's doctor listed three factors which he felt established a direct causal relation between the stress of claimant's duties and the onset of the spasm. They were: (1) emotional factors of supervision; (2) physical stress caused by temperature changes; and (3) chemical irritants from the asphalt. The doctor reasons that 'a good number of people who supervise employment of others will tell you that they become aggravated, exasperated, and mad to the point that they get sick sometimes, because they can't get the job done, because the people won't work. * * * I think that is a factor in any supervisory type job; maybe not in him, I don't know. He may take it well.' (Emphasis supplied.)

As to physical stress,...