Black v. Metropolitan Tobacco

• Decision Date: 16 July 1987
• Citation: 517 N.Y.S.2d 815,132 A.D.2d 814
• Parties: In the Matter of the Claim of Sara BLACK, Respondent, v. METROPOLITAN TOBACCO et al., Appellants. Workers' Compensation Board, Respondent.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 815

517 N.Y.S.2d 815

132 A.D.2d 814

In the Matter of the Claim of Sara BLACK, Respondent, v. METROPOLITAN TOBACCO et al., Appellants Workers' Compensation Board, Respondent.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division,

Third Department.

July 16, 1987.

Weeks, Corn, Stewart & De Curtis (Robert W. Manning, of counsel), Jericho, for appellants.

Robert Abrams, Atty. Gen. (Howard B. Friedland and Carlin Meyer, Asst. Atty. Gen. in charge of Labor Bureau), for Workers' Compensation, New York City.

Before MAHONEY, P.J., and KANE, WEISS, LEVINE and CASEY, JJ.

KANE, Justice.

Appeal from a decision of the Workers' Compensation Board, filed February 5, 1986, which ruled that claimant's decedent sustained an accidental injury in the course of his employment and awarded benefits.

Claimant's decedent, age 63, was employed as a salesman for Metropolitan Tobacco. On January 4, 1979, he was advised by his employer this his position was being abolished as of March 1, 1979 and was requested to attend a meeting at his employer's office the following day to discuss retirement on Social Security and the possibility of some type of part-time employment. Having received a raise on January 1, 1979, the notice of loss of employment left decedent "quite distraught" to the extent that "he felt his world was coming to an end".

The following afternoon, he was found dead in his automobile approximately two blocks from the place of his employment. The death certificate indicated he died of hypertensive cardiovascular disease. There is medical evidence in the record that the stress of being told the previous day that he was losing his job, superimposed on his preexisting hypertension, was sufficient to produce, in this decedent, the fatal heart attack.

It is conceded that decedent's death occurred in the course of his employment. The only issue is whether there is substantial evidence to support a finding that the fatal heart attack suffered by claimant's decedent was an accident within the meaning of the Workers' Compensation Law. We think not. A legitimate decision or action on the part of an employer affecting an employee's employment status which precipitates a cardiac event caused by the emotional stress sustained by the employee when confronted with that decision does not constitute an industrial accident (Matter of Millar v. Town of Newburgh, 43 A.D.2d 641, 349 N.Y.S.2d 218). Loss of employment is, in most every instance, a traumatic event, but, as an event, it must be distinguished from those unusual work-related stress and anxiety circumstances which, founded upon "the common-sense viewpoint of the average man", have been held to be an "accident" (Matter of Klimas v. Trans Caribbean Airways, 10...