Bennett's Claimants v. Durango Furniture Mart

• Decision Date: 23 December 1957
• Docket Number: No. 18410,18410
• Citation: 136 Colo. 529,319 P.2d 494
• Parties: CLAIMANTS in the Matter of the Death of Loe W. BENNETT, Plaintiffs in Error, v. DURANGO FURNITURE MART, Industrial Commission of Colorado, and State Compensation Insurance Fund, Defendants in Error.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 494

319 P.2d 494

136 Colo. 529

CLAIMANTS in the Matter of the Death of Loe W. BENNETT Plaintiffs in Error, v. DURANGO FURNITURE MART, Industrial Commission of Colorado and State Compensation Insurance Fund, Defendants in Error.

No. 18410.

Supreme Court of Colorado, In Department.

Dec. 23, 1957.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 13, 1958.

William S. Eakes, E. B. Hamilton, Durango, for plaintiffs in error.

Harold Clark Thompson, Louis Schiff, Alious Rockett, Fred Boden Dudley, Denver, for State Compensation Insurance Fund and Durango Furniture Mart.

Duke Dunbar, Atty. Gen. of Colorado, Frank E. Hickey, Deputy Atty. Gen., Peter Dye, Asst. Atty. Gen., for Industrial Commission of Colorado.

KNAUSS, Justice.

In the trial court plaintiffs in error were plaintiffs and defendants in error were defendants. We shall refer to plaintiffs (widow and two minor children of Leo W. Bennett) as claimants; to Durango Furniture Mart as 'employer'; to defendant in error Industrial Commission of Colorado, as the Commission. Leo W. Bennett will be referred to as the deceased.

This is a workmen's compensation case in which claimants sought compensation for the death of deceased. The findings and conclusions of the Referee were adverse to claimants, and were approved and confirmed by the Commission. The case was taken to the district court where the decision of the Commission was affirmed. Claimants are here on writ of error.

The facts are accurately stated in the findings of the Referee and we quote the salient portions thereof:

'Leo W. Bennett has been employed by the respondent employers in and about their furniture store for the past seven years to perform manual labor described by one of the owners as medium to heavy. He was occasionally obliged to handle rolls of carpeting and linoleum which weighed between 150 and 300 pounds, but, generally, items were lighter, but of greater bulk. On May 8, 1956 Bennett was required to deliver a pair of boxed mattresses, one a double weighing approximately 75 pounds, and the other a single weighing approximately 55 pounds, to a customer who lived some 4 1/2 miles farther from town than he did, but in the same direction. Bennett made the delivery around quitting time with the intention of terminating his day's work at his home rather than returning to the store. Upon arrival with the mattresses at the home of the customer, Bennett invoked the aid of a neighbor friend to help carry the heavy mattresses into the house, a distance of approximately fifty feet with no stairs. Bennett subsequently carried the smaller mattress into the house, removed the cartons, removed an old mattress from the house, and set the rooms in order, all of which took him about an hour. Before leaving for home, Bennett remarked to his friend that he had a stuffy feeling in his chest. On arrival at his own home, Bennett collapsed at the wheel of his car. The doctor and ambulance were called and he was removed to the hospital where he died a few hours later of a massive posterior myocardial infarction.

'Was decedent's death the proximate result of an accidental strain or injury arising out of and within the course of his employment? While the activities hereinabove described might seem arduous to those sedentarily employed, there appears to be nothing unusual or particularly strenuous for one who has been engaged and for seven years has performed 'medium to heavy labor'. The Referee does not find from the evidence an accidental injury or overexertion.'

The question presented by this review is: Did the Industrial Commission properly decide that the decedent did not sustain an accidental injury or overexertion arising out of his employment? We are required under this record to answer this inquiry in the affirmative. All the pertinent facts surrounding the activities of decedent on the day of his death were before the Referee and his findings were adverse to the claims of plaintiffs. It necessarily follows that the Commission as trier of the facts weighed the evidence, examined and evaluated the witnesses. Where the evidence is such that reasonable men might differ and honestly arrive at contrary conclusions based on a record such as that before us for review, the findings of the Commission are final and conclusive. The best that can be said of claimant's case is that there is a conflict in the inferences to be drawn from...