Brady v. Royal Mfg. Co.
| Decision Date | 23 February 1968 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 1,3,No. 43245,2,43245,s. 1 |
| Parties | Evelyn BRADY v. ROYAL MANUFACTURING COMPANY |
| Court | Georgia Court of Appeals |
Syllabus by the Court
Where an employee held a discussion with her employer relative to whether an absence was to be charged against her as unexcused because of failure to notify the office that she would not come in, and she became emotionally upset, developed a conversion reaction from which she supposed her arm to be paralyzed, but the doctors could find no physical reason for it, a finding that she did not suffer an accidental injury arising out of her emplolyment was authorized.
Evelyn Brady filed a claim for compensation. After hearing, the deputy director denied compensation and on appeal to the full Board his findings and award were adopted. On appeal to the superior court the award was affirmed and she appeals.
The board found as a fact that claimant became emotionally upset after a dispute with her superiors concerning a day of absence and whether it should be charged against her as being unexcused because of failure to notify them, in accordance with a company rule, that she was no coming to work on that day. She was requested to sign a statement that she had been absent without excuse, but she contended that she had not been absent without permission because she had been instructed not to report on that day unless she was notified to come and that she had not been notified. The board found that as a consequence of her upset over this dispute claimant developed a conversion reaction which resulted in what she thought to be a paralysis of her left arm, and she would not use it. The doctors, however, testified that there was no physical reason, so far as they were able to find after considerable observation. And testing, for any paralysis of the arm. It was psychological. The finding of the board was that 'claimant's disability was not caused by injury by accident arising out of and in the course of her employment * * *,' that 'there must be an actual physical injury upon which to predicate a claim for disability from a neurosis, that a mental or psychic disability must have had its origin in injury,' and that 'this mental or nervous injury was due to excitement and is not an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of claimant's employment.'
J. William Pierce, Washington, for appellant.
Erwin, Birchmore & Epting, Denny C. Galis, Athens, for appellee.
We cannot find any basis for holding that claimant suffered an 'injury' resulting from 'accident,' as required by the Act, and we affirm.
While the result may not have been intended or expected, the occurrence out of which her condition arose, or out of which she asserts that it arose, was in no way accidental. She was called in to the office for the discussion; the discussion proceeded between her and her superior in an apparently normal manner; and until that had ended nothing untoward happened. There is testimony which would authorize a finding (and we must accept it, since the board found against the claim) that she actually returned to her work for some time after the interview had closed. Nothing happened to her on the job itself; she does not contend that it did.
The medical evidence does not indicate that she actually suffers from a paralyzed arm; on the contrary it indicates that she merely thinks it to be paralyzed and will not use or attempt to use it. It is a state of mind. The doctors find no physical evidence of or reason for the paralysis which she thinks exists. This may and probably does indicate that what claimant suffers from is some type of mental illness. While mental illness is as real as pneumonia, like pneumonia it is an illness. It is not an 'injury' by 'accident.' See Industrial Commission of Ohio v. O'Malley, 124 Ohio St. 401, 178 N.E. 842 (); Schuster v. Perryman Elec. Co., 11 N.J.Misc. 16, 1963 A. 437 (); Voss v. Prudential Ins. Co., 14 N.J.Misc. 791, 187 A. 334 (), in none of which could the resulting condition be attributed to an 'accident.'
There are some cases from other jurisdictions coming to the contrary conclusion, the principal one relied upon by claimant being CHARON'S CASE, 321 MASS. 694, 75 N.E.2D 511,1 but it must be observed that the Massachusetts Act does not require that the injury result from accident.
The Board has found that claimant did not suffer an injury by accident. That is a finding involving factual issues, and we should not disturb it. To do so we must conclude as a matter of law that she did suffer an injury by accident. That we cannot do. Montgomery v....
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