Combustion Engineering, Inc. v. Kennedy

• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: HARBISON; HENRY
• Citation: Combustion Engineering, Inc. v. Kennedy, 562 S.W.2d 202 (Tenn. 1978)
• Decision Date: 27 February 1978
• Parties: COMBUSTION ENGINEERING, INC., Appellant-Defendant, v. James H. KENNEDY, Appellee-Plaintiff. 562 S.W.2d 202

Page 202

562 S.W.2d 202

COMBUSTION ENGINEERING, INC., Appellant-Defendant, v. James H. KENNEDY, Appellee-Plaintiff.

562 S.W.2d 202

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Feb. 27, 1978.

Paul Campbell, Jr., Chattanooga, for appellant-defendant.

Jeffrey D. Boehm, Chattanooga, for appellee-plaintiff.

OPINION

HARBISON, Justice.

In this workmen's compensation case the trial court awarded benefits to the employee for loss of sight in both eyes, finding a causal connection between the industrial blindness of the employee and an accident which had occurred in the scope and course of his employment. On appeal the principal contention of the employer is that there is no material evidence of such causal connection.

The underlying facts of the case are essentially undisputed. The employee was a welder, approximately forty-eight years of age, and had been employed by Combustion Engineering, Inc. for about twenty-five years at the time of the accident on January 27, 1976. While attempting to extinguish a fire, he struck his head on a metal pipe, sustaining lacerations above his right eyebrow and on the lower right eyelid. The force of impact was such that the employee was thrown suddenly to the floor, and his safety glasses were dislodged. When he got up, he found that blood was flowing from the cuts around his eye, and he was sent to the office of a general surgeon, where the lacerations were sutured. Five days later these sutures were removed. In the interim the employee had reported for work but did not engage in welding; he could not wear his safety helmet because of swelling in the injured area of his face. He did not resume welding until two weeks after the accident. Thereafter he began to suffer from rather severe headaches but was able to continue working with the aid of aspirin.

On Sunday, February 28, 1976 the employee awoke and noticed that vision in his right eye was impaired. On the next morning he notified the employer and was then seen and examined by Dr. Jemison Bowers, an ophthalmologist. Dr. Bowers immediately advised hospitalization of the employee, finding on examination that visual acuity in the left eye was normal but that in the right eye was sharply diminished. Dr. Bowers called a neurosurgeon, Dr. Ralph McGraw, for consultation, and the two doctors saw the employee each day for the next seventeen days while he was in the hospital. Plaintiff lost the vision in his right eye entirely after being hospitalized, and three days later suddenly lost vision in his left eye.

There is general agreement among the medical witnesses that the loss of vision resulted from optic neuritis, an inflammation of the optic nerve. The condition was serious, causing the optic nerve to wither or die, and resulted in severe loss of vision in each eye. The employee can distinguish light from dark and has other limited visual perception. However, there is no question but that he was suffering from total blindness at the date of the trial, within the meaning of the workmen's compensation law.

Numerous tests and examinations were performed upon the employee, both during his hospitalization and thereafter, and there is a wide diversity of expert opinion as to the cause of his optic neuritis. He himself attributed it to the industrial accident which occurred on January 27, 1976. Neither Dr. Bowers nor Dr. McGraw could find any causal nexus between the accident and the subsequent blindness of the employee, nor could other specialists who were called as expert witnesses on behalf of the employer. Several of the witnesses testified that such neuritis is usually the result of multiple sclerosis or some other disease or inflammation of the brain tissues, but there is no evidence that the employee has or has ever had multiple sclerosis, and there is no such diagnosis in the present case.

The employee was examined by another ophthalmologist, Dr. Bruce Dahrling, who gave a professional opinion that the optic neuritis from which the plaintiff was suffering was secondary to and resulted from the accident of January 27, 1976.

It is insisted by the employer that Dr. Dahrling's testimony is speculative, and that since he was only an examining physician and not a treating one, his testimony either should not be considered at all or should not be given the...