Bruton v. City of Bath
| Decision Date | 15 July 1981 |
| Citation | 432 A.2d 390 |
| Parties | Charles R. BRUTON v. CITY OF BATH and Home Indemnity Co. |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
McTeague, Higbee & Tierney, Jonathan W. Reitman (orally), Brunswick, for plaintiff.
Norman & Hanson, Theodore H. Kirchner (orally), Robert F. Hanson, Portland, for defendants.
Before McKUSICK, C. J., and WERNICK, NICHOLS, ROBERTS and CARTER, JJ.
Central to this appeal is the ever difficult question as to whether a heart attack may entitle the victim to an award of compensation under our Workers' Compensation Act.
Here the worker, Charles R. Bruton, appeals from a pro forma judgment of the Superior Court (Sagadahoc County) affirming a decision of the Workers' Compensation Commission which denied his petition for award of compensation on the ground that his injury did not arise out of his employment. The Commission found as a fact that the injury was not caused by a work-related incident.
We affirm the judgment below.
In February, 1979, Charles R. Bruton, Chief of Police in Bath, was asked by the City Manager to take color slides illustrating the severe traffic congestion in late afternoon caused by the termination of the first shift at the local shipbuilding firm. These pictures were to be used by the City in its effort to obtain federal funding for construction of a bypass to relieve this congestion. On February 22, while photographing the rush hour traffic, which Chief Bruton described as "extremely busy and dangerous," he experienced a "burning type of pain" in the center of his chest.
Four days later, following confrontation with a distraught woman who had received a parking ticket, Chief Bruton again felt the same pain in the center of his chest. He testified that as a result of this altercation he was "wound up" and that it was "pretty exasperating to deal with that type of situation."
On March 1, 1979, the date of the injury for which compensation was sought in the proceeding below, the City Manager asked Chief Bruton to take additional color slides and develop them that same evening so they would be available for city officials to take to Washington, D. C., the next morning. Dressed in full uniform Bruton arrived at the subject intersection and began taking pictures when the first shift ended. He found it "frustrating" and "exasperating" to observe the overload of vehicles as well as to note several traffic violations which he could do nothing about. Within a few minutes he again felt the familiar burning sensation return to his chest, accompanied by back pain not experienced before. After taking a few more pictures, Chief Bruton walked back to the police station. Realizing that the pain was increasing, he requested an ambulance take him to Bath Memorial Hospital where he was diagnosed as having sustained a myocardial infarction. Bruton was totally disabled from work from March 2, 1979, to May 29, 1979.
In denying the petition for award of compensation, the Commissioner concluded:
Having heard all of the evidence, I am not persuaded that this employee's injury resulted from unusual emotional or physical stress. Accordingly, I find as a fact and conclude as a matter of law that the employee has failed in his burden of demonstrating that this injury arose out of his employment with the City of Bath ....
On appeal, Bruton does not dispute the factual findings of the Commissioner. Rather, he challenges the correctness of the Commissioner's conclusions; he argues that the Commissioner applied an erroneous rule of law by requiring proof that his work activity on the day in sustained his myocardial infarction was "unusual."
We disagree.
Our Workers' Compensation Act requires that for an injury to be compensable it must both "arise out of" and be sustained "in the course of" the claimant's employment. 39 M.R.S.A. § 51 (1978). If one of these requirements is not met, the injury is non-compensable. Blackman v. Harris Baking Co., Me., 407 A.2d 21, 23 (1979). In the case before us the Commissioner found that Chief Bruton sustained his injury in the course of his employment but that the myocardial infarction did not arise out of his employment. Both requirements not being satisfied, the petition for award of compensation was denied.
We have defined the statutory words "arising out of" as meaning that there must exist "some causal connection between the conditions under which the employee worked and the injury which arose, or that the injury, in some proximate way, had its origin, its source, its cause in the employment." Barrett v. Herbert Engineering, Inc., Me., 371 A.2d 633, 636 (1977), citing Westman's Case, 118 Me. 133, 106 A. 532 (1919). In McLaren v. Webber Hospital Association, Me., 386 A.2d 734, 736 (1978), we indicated that an injury arises out of employment "where a proximate causal connection exists between the circumstances of employment and the injury."
The determination of causal connection is, of course, a question of fact. Rowe v. Bath Iron Works Corp., Me., 428 A.2d 71, 73 (1981); Parent v. Great Northern Paper Co., Me., 424 A.2d 1099, 1101 (1981). As such, it is our duty to sustain the Commissioner's findings if supported by competent evidence. Mortimer v. Harry C. Crooker & Sons, Inc., Me., 423 A.2d 248, 250 (1980). This we must do even if, as in the instant case, there is other evidence in the record which would support a different conclusion. St. Pierre v. Morin Brick Co., Me., 427 A.2d 492, 494 (1981); Dunton v. Eastern Fine Paper Co., Me., 423 A.2d 512, 518 (1980). 1
The testimony of Bernard Givertz, M. D., a cardiologist, constituted sufficient competent evidence to support the Commissioner's factual finding on the issue of causal connection. Dr. Givertz testified that Chief Bruton had a very strong family history of coronary disease. Chief Bruton had an extended smoking history of approximately 20 years, a history of documented hypertension, and was considerably overweight in 1972. Dr. Givertz indicated that with a hypothetical person having these "risk factors," it would not be necessary for physical exertion or emotional upset to occur to produce a myocardial infarction. In fact, such could occur, the cardiologist testified, "at rest, ... during one's sleep; ... (or) at any time of the day or night." When questioned as to whether Chief Bruton's work activity on March 1, 1979 was the cause of his myocardial infarction, Dr. Givertz stated:
A. (I)t would be my opinion that the work of that particular day was not a...
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