Ciuba v. Irvington Varnish & Insulator Co.

• Decision Date: 26 May 1958
• Docket Number: No. A--102,A--102
• Citation: 141 A.2d 761,27 N.J. 127
• Parties: Agnes CIUBA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. IRVINGTON VARNISH & INSULATOR CO., Respondent-Appellee.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

Page 127

27 N.J. 127

141 A.2d 761

Agnes CIUBA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v.IRVINGTON VARNISH & INSULATOR CO., Respondent-Appellee.

No. A--102.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Argued March 17, 1958.

Decided May 26, 1958.

Herman M. Wilson, Newark, for appellant.

Isidor Kalisch, Newark, for respondent.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

HEHER, J.

We have here a dependency action under the Workmen's Compensation Act, R.S. 34:15--7 et seq., N.J.S.A., brought by the widow of one Frank Ciuba who on April 7, 1955, at the age of 59, suffered an acute myocardial infarction in the course of his employment as a millwright with the defendant corporation at its plant in Irvington, New Jersey, followed by immediate disablement and death ten days later.The attack came shortly after the workman had completed the installation of an oven-drive unit weighing between 200 and 300 pounds.

The deputy director concluded that 'the greater weight of probabilities is that the decedent's death resulted from a coronary incident due to progressive heart disease and is not causally related to his employment by reason of any unusual strain or by reason of any occupational disease or hazard'; and the petition for compensation was accordingly dismissed.

The County Court affirmed.The holding there was that 'the proofs do not establish that the work being performed was more strenuous than that for which (the worker) had been hired and which he customarily performed or that the work then in hand was done under conditions unusual to his employment,' nor the alternative hypothesis that an occupational disease from his exposure to 'fumes and heat as the usual conditions attending (his) work * * * brought about (his) death by reason of their malignant influence upon a heart that was already impaired.'

An appeal taken by plaintiff to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court is here by our certification, Sua sponte

Ciuba had been continuously employed by defendant as a millwright from October 1938, usually assigned to a group of workers engaged in the maintenance of machinery throughout the plant which required the 'set(ting) up (of) all kinds of equipment, all kinds of machines,' weighing as much as 500 pounds, on occasion 1,500 pounds, depending upon the mechanical function.It was work that in its very nature called for varying degrees of physical exertion, according to the weight and dimensions of the mechanism to be set up.

The decedent and a fellow employee, Fruzynski, installed the oven-drive unit.The installation process is thus described in the findings of the County Court: the mechanical apparatus was 'a new kind of drive shaft geared to the operation of several ovens as a unit * * * supplanting a shaft of another type'; the unit 'had to be raised to a height of eight feet so that it could be connected'; the 'raising of the mechanism from the floor and connecting it remained to be done when they started work at 8 A.M.' on the day of the mishap (the work had begun the day before); a 'rope and pulley contrivance and a two-step platform were the only mechanical adjuncts to their efforts'; while the unit was 'on the floor they tied the rope around it and, in the words of Fruzynski, 'we start standing up the unit and put it on the first step"; the steps had 'twelve inch risers'; the drive shaft 'was then raised to the second step, Fruzynski pulling on the rope with one hand and with his other hand on the unit, while Ciuba lifted with his hands', the 'unit having been raised to the top step, they'tip(ped) it over straight up'; Fruzynski 'then mounted a ladder and again assumed control of the rope, calling upon Ciuba to resume lifting'; 'Ciuba responded'; as he 'assisted in the raising, he got up on the first step, and pushed the unit up 'about halfway, (and)we tip(ped) it over on the beam"; at 'the completion of the raising Ciuba's hands were over his head'; 'There then followed the work of lining up the unit with the gear, drilling a hole, and connecting it up, all of which took about twenty minutes'; Fruzynski 'estimated that the job was finished about 9:40 A.M.'

When the work was completed, Fruzynski and Ciuba repaired with their tools to the machine shop, 100 feet away from the room in which the unit had been installed.They were thereupon assigned to other work; and some 15 minutes later Fruzynski returned to the machine shop and there saw Ciuba walking from the 'dressing room,' on his way home, accompanied by a fellow worker; he had then been stricken.

The oven-drive unit was installed in a room 100 feet by 60 feet known as a 'coating tower,' containing 14 ovens, seven on either side, through which cloth was passed in the process of applying a plastic coating; the heat within the ovens, said the County Court, 'was estimated at 350 degrees'; the oven on which the work was being done was not in use at the time.The operation was carried on between the wall and the oven, an area two feet wide; the ceiling was eight or nine feet above the work level, 'thus making the ceiling height there 16 or 17 feet' and 30 feet beyond that point.Fruzynski testified there were uncovered steam pipes along the wall; they were required to place the unit 'between the wall and the oven, up about six foot high'; Ciuba lifted 'one end,' and he, Fruzynski, 'was on the top, and pull(ing) the rope'; the temperature, he said, was 30 degrees higher than 'outside'; at the time in question, 'everybody (was sweating) down there.'The foreman, Jeskey, said 'All the coating room jobs any place, they are always warm, * * * that's when you are on the floor.When you go higher, it is warmer.'He continued: '(Ciuba had) had harder work, and that wasn't an easy job either.I mean it was in a tight place, * * * that was the only place we could get it in.'

Some 15 years before, a physician consulted by the decedent diagnosed his complaint as angina pectoris.But so far as appears, there had been no symptomatic recurrence of the condition; and his work record shows continuous service of the same character with the defendant employer until he was mortally stricken.There is no suggestion of waning physical strength in the laborious work that fell to his lot, but his family noticed indications of fatigue during the last year of his life.

The plaintiff adduced medical opinion evidence that in all probability working conditions--the heat, cramped quarters and naphtha fumes, combined with physical effort--induced the acute myocardial infarction; there was an undue burden 'on the coronary circulation,' predisposed as the decedent was by deterioration of the heart and circulatory system and the consequent coronary insufficiency.And the 15-minute interval before the onset of the fatal seizure, the witness said, was in accord with this hypothesis.

There was error in matter of law in the several determinations of the deputy director and the County Court that, for failure of proof of 'unusual strain' or the doing of work 'more strenuous than that for which (the deceased workman) had been hired and which he customarily performed,' the mortal coronary occlusion was not a compensable accident within the intendment of R.S. 34:15--7, N.J.S.A.We hold this to be an illusory criterion of the work-connected injury or death 'by accident' made the subject of the statutory compensation benefits.

An 'accident' in the legislative sense is an 'unlooked for mishap or an untoward event which is not expected or designed'; and such is the case where a heart ravaged by disease succumbs to strain or exertion arising from the doing of the master's work, even though it be but a normal incident of the service, in no sense extraordinary, and such as a sound heart could withstand.It is basic to the statutory policy that, if strain or exertion attending the rendition of the service aggravates or accelerates the progress of a pre-existing physical infirmity or condition due to either trauma or disease, and disability or death ensues, there is a compensable accident and injury.Such is an untoward event, unintended and unexpected within the concept of the statute.The essential inquiry is whether the disabling injury or death is causally related to strain or exertion attendant on the doing of the master's work.Did the accident come from disease alone, or did the employment contribute to it?Hentz v. Janssen Dairy Corp., 122 N.J.L. 494, 6 A.2d 409(E. & A.1939);Molnar v. American Smelting & Refining Co., 127 N.J.L. 118, 21 A.2d 213(Sup.Ct.1941), affirmed128 N.J.L. 11, 24 A.2d 392(E. & A.1942).See alsoCiocca v. National Sugar Refining Co., 124 N.J.L. 329, 12 A.2d 130(E. & A.1940);Cavanaugh v. Murphy Varnish Co., 130 N.J.L. 107, 31 A.2d 759(Sup.Ct.1943), affirmed131 N.J.L. 163, 35 A.2d 896(E. & A.1944).

This is the meaning given the same clause of the English prototype of our statute in Fenton v. Thorley & Co., Ltd., (1903)A.C. 443, a construction of our own statute adopted at the very beginning.Bryant, Adm'x v. Fissell, 84 N.J.L. 72, 86 A. 458(Sup.Ct.1913);Hall v. Doremus, 114 N.J.L. 47, 175 A. 369(Sup.Ct.1934);Bollinger v. Wagaraw Building Supply Co., 122 N.J.L. 512, 6 A.2d 396(E. & A.1939).

'Injury by accident' means nothing more than 'accidental injury,' as the term is popularly used.Clover, Clayton & Co., Ltd. v. Hughes, (1910)A.C. 242, Lord Macnaghten.There, a fatal rupture of an advanced aneurism of the aorta, caused by strain when the workman was tightening a nut with a spanner, was held to be an 'accident' within the meaning of the statute, even though the aneurism was in such an advanced condition that 'it might have burst while the man was asleep, and very slight exertion, or strain, would have been sufficient to bring about a rupture.'The finding of the County Court in that case was that 'the death was caused by a strain arising out of the ordinary work of the deceased operating upon a condition of body which was such as to render the strain fatal'...