Broadfoot v. Albert Hugo Ass'n, Inc.

• Decision Date: 20 November 1985
• Docket Number: No. BD-150,BD-150
• Citation: 478 So.2d 863,10 Fla. L. Weekly 2569
• Parties: 10 Fla. L. Weekly 2569 William J. BROADFOOT, Appellant, v. ALBERT HUGO ASSOCIATION, INC., and Mission Insurance Company, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 863

478 So.2d 863

10 Fla. L. Weekly 2569

William J. BROADFOOT, Appellant, v. ALBERT HUGO ASSOCIATION, INC., and Mission Insurance Company, Appellees.

No. BD-150.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

First District.

Nov. 20, 1985.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 13, 1985.

John M. Bryant, Jacksonville, for appellant.

Robert E. O'Quinn, Jr., and David A. McCranie of Webb, Swain & O'Quinn, Jacksonville, for appellees.

SMITH, Judge.

Claimant appeals an order of the deputy commissioner determining that his heart attack was not compensable. Because the order does not contain findings of ultimate fact with a degree of specificity enabling us to determine the factual and legal basis for the deputy's conclusion, we reverse and remand for further findings. Mobley v. Fulford Van & Storage, 390 So.2d 426 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980); Westberry v. Copeland Sausage Company, 389 So.2d 1214 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980); and Kennedy v. Tyson, 382 So.2d 820 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980).

Claimant was employed as an interior decorator. In the month preceding his heart attack he was required to rearrange furniture on the showroom floor, and continually move heavy pieces of furniture, because the employees who usually perform this task were assigned to another job. While moving this furniture, claimant experienced pain in his left arm, off and on, which he thought was a sore muscle. He later learned that he was probably experiencing angina.

On May 2, 1984, the day of his heart attack, claimant helped a colleague look for fabric in a hot, un-airconditioned warehouse for an unusually long time. The fabric was in rolls which had to be lifted by claimant. Claimant experienced pain in his left arm immediately while performing this task. Later, claimant loaded his car with samples and went to an appointment at a client's home to measure 25 foot draperies, swags, sheers, over-draperies, and liners. While measuring for drapes was not an unusual activity, claimant testified this particular job was more difficult because of the size of the drapes he was measuring for. While performing this job, claimant had arm pain and chest pain together for the first time. Also, claimant had an upsetting experience that day when a carpet installation for one of his best clients which was scheduled to be done in the afternoon had to be rescheduled. When claimant returned to the showroom, he continued to experience arm and chest pain which became increasingly more excruciating until he was taken to the emergency room where he was diagnosed as having had a heart attack.

Dr. Short testified that based on a reasonable medical probability, it was unlikely that claimant's act of moving furniture during the month preceding his heart attack had caused his heart attack. In explanation, Dr. Short testified that heart attacks caused by extreme activity usually follow in a close period of time after the activity. Concerning the events of the day of claimant's heart attack, Dr. Short was asked the following question to which he responded:

Q. If you assumed that on the day Mr. Broadfoot was hospitalized he had experienced some left arm pain while moving and lifting some rolls of fabric at the store and that he had then loaded up some fabric into his station wagon, had gone out to a prospective customer's home and had measured for some draperies and had made a presentation to the people in their home, and while doing that had also experienced that left arm pain, and then following that presentation in the home, drove back to his office where he stayed for a little while and then went to the hospital, would those facts change your opinions that you've given today?

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A. That type of activity, if it's something that he has not--well, even regardless of whether he's used to doing it, heavy lifting, any sort of heavy lifting by virtue of the inordinant amount of strain it puts on the heart, can precipitate a heart attack.

The deputy's very brief order recites no findings of fact, except as included within the following conclusion:

Based on Dr. Short's testimony, the unusual physical exertion claimant sustained at work did not cause or precipitate, and was not shown to have aggravated or accelerated, the heart attack.

Thus, while the order does conclude that claimant sustained an unusual physical exertion at work, it does not explain whether this relates to the events preceding the day of claimant's heart attack (claimant's act of moving furniture during the month of April), or whether it relates to the events which occurred on the day of claimant's heart attack. If the deputy, relying upon Dr. Short's testimony, found that claimant's act of moving furniture during the month of April was an unusual physical exertion sustained at work which did not cause or precipitate his heart attack, then his denial of compensation would be proper because this conclusion would be supported by competent, substantial evidence in the record. However, if the deputy determined that the activities on the day of claimant's heart attack constituted unusual physical exertion, but that this unusual physical exertion was not medically causally related by Dr. Short's testimony, the deputy may well have overlooked pertinent cases of this court formulating the standard for medical causation.

Medical causal relationship between the strain or over-exertion and the heart attack must be within a reasonable medical probability. However, this reasonable medical probability may be established by either medical or lay testimony. Although lay testimony cannot be used to establish causal relationship within reasonable medical probability as to conditions and symptoms that are not readily observable, it is of probative value in...