Ballenger v. Southern Worsted Corp.

• Decision Date: 16 December 1946
• Docket Number: 15900.
• Parties: BALLENGER v. SOUTHERN WORSTED CORPORATION et al.
• Court: South Carolina Supreme Court

40 S.E.2d 681

209 S.C. 463

BALLENGER v. SOUTHERN WORSTED CORPORATION et al.

No. 15900.

Supreme Court of South Carolina

December 16, 1946

Stephen Nettles, of Greenville for appellants.

Culbertson & Brown, of Greenville, for respondent.

STUKES Justice.

This appeal is from an award of workman's compensation by the Industrial Commission (affirmed by the Circuit Court) upon the sole ground of the alleged lack of evidence of causal connection between the accident and the injury. Claimant was about his duties as an employee of the appellant, Southern Worsted Corporation, when the contents of a dye kettle, over which he was working, erupted, and the hot liquid went over his upper body, including his face and eyes; more got into his left eye than his right. The kettle was not boiling, but near it, about 190~ F.

The injured employee was taken immediately to a hospital where he was kept only an hour or so and there is no medical evidence of his condition at that time or the nature of the treatment. He remained at home four days and then returned to work. Declining to accept settlement based upon inability to work and earn during this short period, he filed claim for compensation on account of a contended permanent injury to his eye. The employer sent him for examination to an eye specialist of its choice who testified fully as to the results of his examination, which was some six or seven weeks after the accident. He found an astigmatism in the left eye and seriously impaired vision from inability of the eye to properly focus. He also described the defect as refractive error, a condition of farsightedness, also called eyestrain. The witness saw no ill effects of the accident which he said might or might not permanently affect the eye, but he saw no bad result or any condition which he thought could not be restored to normal by the use of properly fitted glasses the left eye being about fifty per cent weaker than the right eye; further that eyestrain causes the eyes to burn and water.

The doctor was of opinion that if claimant first complained of the symptoms of eyestrain after the accident it might be because he paid more attention to the eye afterward on account of the accident and thereby discovered the defect which he had not noticed before, and because eyestrain and astigmatism can cause watering of the eyes.

The respondent depended upon his own testimony and that of his wife to establish that the accident caused his disability. He was forty-two years old at the time of the hearing and had been married almost twenty-five years. He and his wife testified to the effect that he was in good health and had no noticeable defect in vision, watering or anything else wrong with his eyes before the hot dye entered them, that he could before read all that he wanted to, and never used glasses and was conscious of no defect in his eyes or vision. He also testified to the loss after the accident of considerable weight and physical strength and that the employer had put him upon lighter work after his return to his job but his wages are the same. On the eve of the hearing he consulted another doctor who also told him that he needed glasses.

Appellants' single exception is to the effect that the evidence fails to show that the defective eye condition of claimant resulted from the accident and reliance is had upon the rule that claimant's burden of proof included the burden of showing by the evidence and inferences that the accident caused the disability. There can be no dispute about the latter concept. 71 C.J. 636, 637, 1062, 1115; South Carolina decisions in 34 S.E.Dig., Pt. 2, page 770 Workmen's Compensation, k1357 et seq.

The attack upon the finding of cause by the Commission is largely that their conclusion was induced by the fallacy commonly called post hoc, ergo propter hoc, which is defined by Webster as follows: 'After this, therefore on account of it--the fallacy of arguing from mere temporal sequence to cause and effect relationship.' But here there is more than mere temporal sequence. There is the testimony of claimant, corroborated by his wife. Appellants' interesting argument also includes quotations from textbooks on logic, apparently overlooking that the proximate cause of the law is not necessarily the proximate cause of the logician. Legal proximate cause is determined upon mixed considerations of logic, common sense and experience, policy, and precedent. 38 Am.Jur. 701. Moreover, our problem is not to discover and apply the rules of logic or law to the evidential facts, for the Court is not the fact-finding body in compensation cases. The factual findings of the Commission are expressly binding upon us and the Circuit Courts, under the compensation law itself, and as established in a long line of cases from this Court. Our sphere in such a contest is only to determine whether there was any evidence before the Commission which tended to sustain its conclusion of fact; without such a foundation in the record, the conclusion would be invalid as a matter of law, with the resulting duty upon us to reverse.

The evidence in this case is undoubtedly scant and short of satisfactory. The claimant should have at least attempted to adduce more, but there was some which sustained the Commission's conclusion. 'Post Hoc' is some in...