Berndt v. Department of Labor and Industries of State, 32549

• Decision Date: 28 January 1954
• Docket Number: No. 32549,32549
• Citation: 265 P.2d 1037,44 Wn.2d 138
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: BERNDT, v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & INDUSTRIES OF STATE et al.

Page 138

44 Wn.2d 138

265 P.2d 1037

BERNDT, v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & INDUSTRIES OF STATE et al.

No. 32549.

Supreme Court of Washington, Department 1.

Jan. 28, 1954.

Rehearing Denied March 30, 1954.

F. W. Loomis, Aberdeen, for appellant.

Don Eastvold, Atty. Gen., Henry Heckendorn, Roger K. Garrison, Seattle, for Department of Labor & Industry.

Donley & Ingram, Aberdeen, for employer.

HILL, Justice.

This is not just another heart case. Appellant seeks to lead us to a position beyond any which this court or any other, so far as we have found, has yet taken in the matter of attributing death from a heart condition to an industrial injury or occupational disease.

Curt Berndt, a plywood worker, contracted an acute dermatitis from the glue with which he came in contact in the course of his employment. Its extent and character is graphically described in a hypothetical question hereinafter quoted; suffice it to say here that it was disabling and he was off work from March 13, 1948, to May 3, 1948, a little less than two months. He resumed his employment on the latter date and continued to work to and including August 6, 1948, the day of his death. The dermatitis had pretty well healed except on his genitals. There, although the condition had improved from time to time, it had always become worse again, and the skin was 'raw and weeping' at the time of his death. Death occurred as the result of a coronary thrombosis while he was mowing his lawn.

The widow claims a pension under our workmen's compensation act because (1) her husband, a workman under the act, contracted an acute dermatitis which is conceded to have been an occupational disease within the purview of the workmen's compensation act and which (2) caused him to worry (emotional stress and strain), which worry (3) caused the coronary thrombosis which (4) caused his death.

The only emotional stress referred to in the hypothetical question, hereinafter more fully discussed, is this sentence:

'He was greatly humiliated and concerned that his wife might believe that he had been untrue to her and contracted a private disease.'

Appellant's expert concluded that

'* * * the main contributing element towards the incidence of an acute coronary thrombosis is the emotional stress and strain involved in this case by the dermatitis which this man had.'

His concept as to the basis of the emotional stress and strain is found in two quotations from his answers on cross-examination:

'If he was afraid that his wife thought that he had a social disease, as was stated to me, certainly even though the generalized dermatitis was relieved, the fact that the localized dermatitis remained might have been of considerable emotional import to him. It is conceivable that that was the most emphatic part of his emotional insecurity.'

'Now if you have a man who has had an acute dermatitis which has persisted for a long period of time and which was so severe as to cause him to worry about his own domestic security as well as his economic security, and has distressed him so that he couldn't even bear a sheet over him, then of course you have a very profound emotional factor which caused no doubt some constriction of the coronary artery--in this case probably which had been previously diseased. But they aggravated, as we can say, probably a pre-existing condition and that caused it.'

Based upon her expert's testimony, it is the position of the appellant here that, while the dermatitis did not cause the coronary thrombosis which resulted in Mr. Berndt's death, the emotional stress and strain (which finally boils down to worry or emotional insecurity, with emphasis on the fear that his wife thought he had a social disease) was 'the main contributing element' to the incidence of the coronary thrombosis.

There is no contention that the occupational disease was in and of itself the cause of the coronary thrombosis. The so-called heart cases, in each of which a disabling or fatal heart condition was found to be the almost immediate result of shock or exertion, slight or great, in the course of employment, do not control. See Merritt v. Department of Labor and Industries, 1952, 41 Wash.2d 633, 251 P.2d 158, and cases there cited.

There is no contention that the worry (mental or emotional stress) was itself disabling or compensable. The cases in which death resulted from acts committed by a workman while insane, when the insanity was caused by the injury or the pain resulting therefrom, as in Hepner v. Department of Labor and Industries, 1926, 141 Wash. 55, 250 P. 461; Gatterdam v. Department of Labor and Industries, 1939, 185 Wash. 628, 56 P.2d 693; McFarland v. Department of Labor and Industries, 1936, 188 Wash. 357, 62 P.2d 714; and Karlen v. Department of Labor and Industries, 1952, 41 Wash.2d 301, 249 P.2d 364, obviously are not in point. Nor are the cases in which a disabling mental condition caused by and directly attributable to an injury was the disability for which compensation was claimed. Peterson v. Department of Labor and Industries, 1934, 178 Wash. 15, 33 P.2d 650, traumatic neurosis; Husa v. Department of Labor & Industries, 1944, 20 Wash.2d 114, 146 P.2d 191, traumatic neurosis; Anderson v. Department of Labor & Industries, 1945, 23 Wash.2d 76, 159 P.2d 397, traumatic neurosis; Jacobson v. Department of Labor and Industries, 1950, 37 Wash.2d 444, 224 P.2d 338, schizophrenia.

A distinction is recognized quite generally as to the status of claims under workmen's compensation statutes between a situation in which, as in the cases just cited, the injury or disease has a direct effect (including traumatic neurosis) upon the nervous system, and a situation in which the mental disturbance is collateral to the injury and does not arise directly from it but is due to worry, anxiety, or brooding over the accident or its effect or compensation for it or the like. Coffey v. Coffey Laundries, 1928, 108 Conn. 493, 143 A. 880; Kowalski v. New York, New Haven & Hartford R. Co., 116 Conn. 229, 164 A. 653, 86 A.L.R. 957 and annotation at page 961 thereof; Schneyder v. Cadillac Motor Car Co., 1936, 280 Mich. 127, 273 N.W. 418; Thompson v. Railway Express Agency, Mo.App.1951, 236 S.W.2d 36.

Our present case, however, presents a much more remote field of worry (emotional stress and strain) than any suggested in the cases we have examined. Here the major emphasis is on the workman's worry about the possibility that his wife suspected him of infidelity, together with some reference to worry about economic security. (If this latter had any relation to the dermatitis, it must have been worry about the inadequacy of awards for disability under the workmen's compensation act, for there is no suggestion that the workman's time loss in consequence of the dermatitis was not compensable.)

Every one recognizes that there is an interrelation between worry and bodily ills. The supreme court of Florida said in a divorce action, Baldwin v. Baldwin, 1942, 151 Fla, 341, 353, 9 So.2d 717, 721, that worry 'affects every vital organ and provably results in more mental and physical wrecks than any other one affliction.' It remains open to question, however, whether all the ills that an injured workman or one suffering from an occupational disease can worry himself into, particularly when those worries relate to his personal affairs, are, or were intended to be, covered by the various workmen's compensation statutes. It is suggested in Thompson v. Railway Express Agency, supra, that a psychoneurosis brought about by worries over an unhappy domestic situation or finances should not be compensable.

The one case that even approaches the position contended for by the appellant is Hoage v. Royal Indemnity Co., 1937, 67 App. D.C. 142, 90 F.2d 387, 390, and it does not come very close. A claim adjuster for an indemnity company had been required for eight or nine months prior to his collapse, to handle more than double the usual case load. A doctor who had examined him testified that he had a preexisting arteriosclerosis and that overwork, worry due to failure to keep his work up, and the emotional strain in connection therewith, produced a spasm in a susceptible coronary artery and resulted in the disturbance of the vasomotor system, bringing about angina pectoris and a resultant complete disability. The court said:

'We think that the testimony in the record fully considered tends to show that Mr. Rennie by reason of mental strain, worry, and long and excessive hours of labor suffered a collapse which resulted in his total disability as found by the Deputy commissioner. We think this collapse constituted an accidental injury within the purview of the statute. His case is comparable to that of a manual laborer whose heart collapses as a result of long continued physical strain or overwork resulting from excessive exertion. * * *

'In the present case we are convinced that the claimant suffered a severe spasm of the heart muscle which occurred on May 5, 1934, caused by angina pectoris and that this was the consequence of overwork and physical and mental strain required of the employee by the employer, and resulted in coronary thrombosis, and that this sequence brought the case within the act. It is well known that nervous shock, continued anxiety, and excessive exertion at work under trying circumstances may contribute toward the collapse of persons who are already suffering from hardening of the arteries.'

In that case, the physicians who testified had treated or examined the claimant, and there was emphasis upon 'excessive exertion' and 'long and excessive hours of labor'. To the extent that worry was a factor, it was worry about his work and his inability to keep abreast of it.

(Hoage v. Royal Indemnity Co., supra, is further to be distinguished by pointing out that it was there determined that the claim adjuster's collapse constituted an 'accidental injury' under the Longshoremen's and Harbor...