Banks v. St. Francis Hosp.

• Citation: 697 S.W.2d 340
• Parties: Josephine BANKS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL, Defendant-Appellant. 697 S.W.2d 340
• Decision Date: 16 September 1985
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 340

697 S.W.2d 340

Josephine BANKS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL, Defendant-Appellant.

697 S.W.2d 340

Supreme Court of Tennessee,

at Jackson.

Sept. 16, 1985.

Eugene C. Gaerig, Memphis, for plaintiff-appellee.

Fred M. Ridolphi, Jr., S. Russell Headrick, Stewart C. Stallings, Memphis, for defendant-appellant; Armstrong, Allen, Braden, Goodman, McBride & Prewitt, Memphis, of counsel.

OPINION

BROCK, Justice.

In this worker's compensation case the trial court awarded benefits for permanent, total disability, as well as benefits for temporary total disability and medical expenses. The employer has appealed, asserting that the action is barred by the statute of limitations of one year, that the award is not supported by the evidence, and that the trial judge did not decide certain objections that the defendant made to hypothetical questions; plaintiff asserts that the appeal is frivolous and prays that damages be awarded accordingly. We affirm.

Plaintiff was employed by the St. Francis Hospital as a "central dispatch technician" and, although she was only 5'4" tall, her duties required her to restock carts, which were 5'7" high and weighed between 60 and 70 lbs. when fully loaded. These carts were used by the plaintiff to move medical supplies to various floors and stations of the hospital. Plaintiff was employed on a shift beginning at 10:30 p.m. and ending at 6:30 a.m. Plaintiff's duties involved lifting, bending, stooping, working with computers, answering phones, procuring supplies, restocking parts, obtaining boxes and unloading boxes. Plaintiff had to "do nine carts" during her eight-hour shift and she considered her job to be a "pressure job."

On the morning of January 23, 1982, while lifting a box of bed pads above her head in an effort to place them on the top of a cart she felt a very sharp pain in her chest requiring that she halt her work and seek treatment at the Baptist Hospital in Memphis.

She had suffered chest pains on other occasions during the previous two weeks but never one so intense or lasting so long as the pain encountered on the job while lifting as above described on January 23, 1982. Upon her admission to Baptist Hospital, the plaintiff related to the attending physician two prior occasions of chest pain not related to exertion, although she did relate the January 23 episode of pain to exertion on the job.

During this hospitalization, diagnostic tests, including an EKG and cardiac catheterization, were performed and she was found to have a 95% stenosis, or blockage, of a coronary artery. A coronary artery bypass was performed on January 29, 1982, and she was discharged from the hospital on February 10, 1982.

Plaintiff was permitted to return to work on May 13, 1982, but was rehospitalized on June 24, 1982, for recurring chest pain, depression and pain and swelling in her legs. Again, she was discharged from the hospital on July 9, 1982, but readmitted on October 29, 1982, for chest pain and was discharged on November 22, 1982.

The plaintiff's last day of work was June 16, 1982.

In an exhaustive written findings of fact and conclusions of law the trial judge found that the physical exertion performed by the plaintiff on January 23, 1982, and other occasions had aggravated a pre-existing heart disease, the 95% stenosis of a coronary artery, and that this aggravation of that condition and the effects of the bypass surgery done in an effort to correct it had rendered the plaintiff temporarily totally disabled for a period of 15 weeks and permanently totally disabled beginning June 16, 1982, the last date on which she performed work. Likewise, the trial judge held that the filing of this action on January 28, 1983, was within the one year period of limitations.

The testimony of the plaintiff and that of her attending physician, Dr. Austin, support the finding that she was not aware of this disability or of the fact that it was causally connected to the performance of her work until a point well within one year prior to the filing of this action. It is a familiar principle, of course, that it is the date that an employee's disability manifested itself to a person of reasonable diligence, rather than the date of the accident, if a different date, which triggers the statute of limitations. Jones v. Home Indem. Ins. Co., Tenn., 679 S.W.2d 445 (1984).

Here, the employee, who was 48 years of age and had only a tenth grade education, testified that she had previously experienced chest pain on at least two occasions within the three weeks prior to January 23, 1982, when she experienced the intense episode of pain in her chest. She also testified that the only difference between these prior episodes of chest pain and the one experienced on January 23, 1982, was that the latter pain was of longer duration and more intense.

Dr. Painter, the thoracic surgeon who performed the bypass surgery for the plaintiff, wrote a letter to the defendant on April...