Burnley Shirt Corp. v. Simmons, 44552
| Decision Date | 04 December 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 44552,44552 |
| Citation | 204 So.2d 451 |
| Parties | BURNLEY SHIRT CORPORATION and Zurich Insurance Company v. Mrs. Hazol SIMMONS. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Alben N. Hopkins, Ruby B. Weeks, Daniel, Coker & Horton, Jackson, for appellants.
H. C. Mike Watkins, Meridian, for appellee.
Appellee in this workmen's compensation case filed a claim seeking benefits for injuries which she sustained as a result of an electrical shock experienced while at work, and for a subsequent back injury experienced during her convalescence. From adverse rulings by the attorney referee, the Workmen's Compensation Commission, and the Circuit Court of Lauderdale County, the employer and carrier prosecute this appeal.
The appellee was employed by Burnley Shirt Corporation in Meridian on May 17, 1965. While engaged in using a hand iron to press shirts at approximately 7:00 A.M., she received an electrical shock, the only external evidence of which was a burned thumb. Appellant's branch manager, James M. Bass, and another employee immediately carried appellee to the hospital, at which time she requested to have Dr. William Gillespie, her family doctor, see her. She complained of headaches and stomach trouble after the incident but the record discloses that the same complaints had been made prior to the accident of May 17, 1965. The only medical evidence presented is a typewritten medical report of Dr. William Gillespie dated November 5, 1965, which gives a complete history of the appellee's original episode and the subsequent developments. Her testimony that she remained in the hospital from May 17 to May 21 was corroborated by her doctor. The doctor's report shows that all the physical findings were essentially normal except a first degree burn of the left thumb which was caused by the electrical shock. The doctor's report stated that she was treated conservatively with muscle relaxants, antiemetics, and analgesics. She was discharged with the diagnosis of accidental electrical shock, severe myalgia cervical muscles, and severe nausea and vomiting. She was instructed when she left the hospital that she was to be followed on an out-patient basis until she had recovered.
The doctor saw the appellee at regular intervals at his office and on most of the visits she complained of having severe headaches, nausea and vomiting. The doctor found that she seemed to have a moderate amount of anxiety reaction associated with these complaints, and concluded, therefore, that the patient was unable to work or return to her job. The same conservative treatment was continued with the patient showing temporary improvement for several days at a time, but there would be remissions of severe headache, nausea and severe vomiting. The patient was on continuous therapy for relief of these complaints.
The doctor's report indicates that during approximately the last week in June she began to complain of pain in her abdomen in addition to the other complaints. The doctor believed that these symptoms could be compatible with the development of a peptic ulcer and the appellee was put on a strict diet. She continued to take medication for her headaches and neck pain which the doctor believed to be due to the electrical shock.
On August 4, 1965, the epigastric pain and distress had become so severe the doctor felt it necessary to readmit appellee to the hospital, at which time x-rays revealed an acute duodenal ulcer. The doctor found that the ulcer had been precipitated by the large amounts of analgesics and other medication which the appellee had to take for her severe headaches. The doctor's report discloses that under a strict ulcer regime the abdominal complaints ceased, headaches improved, and vomiting ceased. The appellee was discharged from the hospital on August 17, having been confined there approximately two weeks.
During the next several weeks appellee's headaches and neck pain subsided to the extent that she needed no analgesics or muscle relaxants, and she contemplated returning to work. While getting out of bed one morning she experienced a sharp pain in the low back area which the doctor diagnosed as acute sacro-iliac strain on the right side. To relieve the acute pain and spasms in her back she had to resume taking muscle relaxants and analgesics and shortly thereafter suffered a recurrence of nausea, headaches, and abdominal pain. As a result, she was hospitalized again on October 4, and remained in the hospital for five days. At the time of her discharge on October 9, 1965, tests revealed that the ulcer had healed. At the time of the doctor's last examination of appellee on November 13, 1965, she still complained of headaches and vomiting.
Dr. Gillespie concluded that appellee had been disabled since her accident on May 17, 1965. It was also his conclusion that the headaches, neck spasms, vomiting and anxiety reaction resulted from the electrical shock and that the medications prescribed for these symptoms produced the duodenal ulcer. However, the doctor was not willing to state that there was a connection between appellee's electrical shock and her back injury, as is shown by the following excerpt from his report:
It is difficult for me to say that the back symptoms which began approximately three months after the original episode would be due to the accidental electrical shock. I feel that this was an unfortunate happening which the patient experienced while in her home. * * * It is possible that the patient's back injury happened because of her weakness and general debility.
The findings of the attorney referee follow closely the doctor's report, quoting it verbatim et liberatim in some instances. The attorney referee found that the appellee has been disabled since her accident on May 17; that her headaches, neck spasms, vomiting, and anxiety reaction were related to the accidental electrical shock; and that the acute duodenal ulcer developed as a result of her taking medication for the relief of the symptoms caused by her shock. However, the attorney referee found as a fact that there was no causal connection between the appellee's accident of May 17 and her back injury, and found also that she had not reached maximum medical recovery. The attorney referee's order, which was affirmed by the Commission and by the circuit court, provided that the appellee was to receive benefits for temporary total disability, commencing on May 18, 1965, and payable until such time as she reached maximum medical recovery, at which time a reevaluation of her condition was to be made. The order provided that she was to receive medical services and supplies necessitated by her injury but specified that she was to receive no benefit for treatments which were necessitated by her back condition. Additionally, the order provided for section 13(e) penalties on all compensation unpaid.
The basic issue presented for consideration in this case is: Has the appellee reached maximum...
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...that there was other employment available to Stewart was purely based on hypothetical speculation. ¶ 25. In Burnley Shirt Corporation v. Simmons, 204 So.2d 451, 453 (Miss.1967), the court specifically stated that recovery in a compensation case must be based on probabilities, rather than "p......
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