Dripps v. Industrial Commission
| Decision Date | 05 July 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 34611,34611 |
| Citation | 165 Ohio St. 407,135 N.E.2d 873 |
| Parties | , 60 O.O. 55 DRIPPS, Appellee, v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION of Ohio, Appellant. |
| Court | Ohio Supreme Court |
Syllabus by the Court
1. The term, 'injury,' as used in the Ohio Workmen's Compensation Act, comprehends a physical or traumatic damage or harm accidental in character and as a result of external and accidental means in the sense of being the result of a sudden mishap, occurring by chance, unexpectedly and not in the usual course of events, at a particular time and place.
2. The fact that a workman is injured by exerting more effort or being subjected to a greater strain than is customary in the performance of his work is not in and of itself sufficient to entitle such workman to participate in the State Insurance Fund; and before such participation may be had it must appear that such increased effort or strain was occasioned by some sudden mishap or unusual event.
The claimant, appellee herein, was employed by the Koppers Company, designer and builder of industrial plants, as a 'swing line man' on a boom. His duties consisted of controlling the horizontal movement of a power operated boom. This movement was accomplished by wrapping a boom line around two spools and holding the end of the line under tension, so that, when the sppols were turned by means of steam power from the hoist, the boom was caused to move horizontally to one side or the other, according to the direction in which the spools were turned.
Ordinarily only one spool was required to move the boom, but for some nine weeks prior to the claimed injury, due to the fact that such boom had become unbalanced and twisted, it was necessary to use two spools and to exert a greater pull on the line in order to move the boom
Claimant testified that, on the day of the claimed injury, while he was applying tension to the line in order to move the boom 'all of a sudden something just came down on my shoulder and clear on out to the fingers like an electric shock or something like it might have hit my crazy bone.' That statement is an expression of the sensation felt by the claimant, and there is no contention that he was struck by any outside agency.
The claim for workmen's compensation was denied by the Industrial Commission. The claimant appealed to the Court of Common Pleas, and that court after all the evidence was submitted and on motion directed a verdict for the commission and rendered judgment thereon.
Upon appeal to the Court of Appeals, the judgment of the trial court was reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings.
The cause is before this court on the merits pursuant to the allowance of a motion to certify the record.
C. William O'Neill, Atty. Gen., James L. Young and Van Blanchard, Canton, for appellant.
Traxler & Beil, Youngstown, R. Brooke Alloway and James F. DeLeone, Columbus, for appellee.
The sole question presented on this appeal is whether claimant sustained an injury within the contemplation of the Workmen's Compensation Act, R.C. § 4123.01 et seq.
The question as to the meaning of the term, 'injury,' has been before this court many times, and it has been consistently held that to be compensable an injury must be accidential in origin and result.
In Toth v. Standard Oil Co., 160 Ohio St. 1, 113 N.E.2d 81, we held:
'The term, 'injury,' as used in the Ohio Workmen's Compensation Act, comprehends a physical or traumatic damage or harm, accidental in its character in the sense of being the result of a sudden mishap occurring by chance, unexpectedly and not in the usual course of events, at a particular time and place.'
It is clear that under Ohio law a workman is not entitled to workmen's compensation for every sudden disability with which he is seized while engaged in the performance of his duties for his employer. Nelson v. Industrial Commission, 150 Ohio St. 1, 80 N.E.2d 430. For an employee to receive compensation for an injury arising at a time when he was performing his duties as an employee, he must show that such injury is physical or traumatic in character, that it arose suddenly and was not intentionally self-inflicted, and that it resulted by external means from some specific event or mishap occuring suddenly and unexpectedly and not in the usual course of events. Since it is not the act of the workman but rather the sudden mishap or event which controls the right to compensation, such event or mishap may well occur as a result of and while such employee is performing a customary and intentional act which comes to an unexpected and unintended result. However, the mere exertion of a greater effort than is ordinarily used or being subjected to some extraordinary strain is not in and of itself sufficient to give rise to a right to compensation; to warrant compensation the need for such strain or effort must be shown to have resulted from some sudden, unusual and unexpected occurrence or some sudden specific mishap or event. In other words, for an injury to be compensable under the Workmen's Compensation Act, it must be physical or traumatic in character and a result of external and accidental means occuring at a time when the employee was in the course of his employment.
We come now to a consideration of the case presently before us. The record shows that, for a period of some nine weeks before the date of the injury, the claimant had been forced to use two spools to move the boom. At the time of the injury, claimant was performing the same work and in the same manner as he had performed it daily for many weeks. Nothing unusual occurred, there was no sudden mishap. While performing his usual duties, claimant felt this sudden tingling in his arm which is stipulated to be 'a strain in the left arm which has been determined to be a traumatic disturbance of the brachial plexis and further described as a sensory neuritis and impaired sensation involving the median nerve.' The mere sudden appearance of a disability during the course of his employment is insufficient to entitle a workman to participate in the State Insurance Fund; such injury must have been preceded by some sudden mishap, external in character, resulting in the disability. No such mishap was present in this case.
The judgment of the...
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...judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and that of the Court of Common Pleas affirmed, on authority of Dripps v. Industrial Commission, 165 Ohio St. 407, 135 N.E.2d 873. See, also, Artis v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 165 Ohio St. 412, 135 N.E.2d Judgment reversed. WEYGANDT, C. J., an......
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..."unusual happening" that the General Assembly probably had in mind when R.C. 4123.01(C) was drafted is found in Dripps v. Indus. Comm. (1956), 165 Ohio St. 407, 135 N.E.2d 873. (Bowman v. National Graphics Corp., supra, dissenting opinion at page 232, 378 N.E.2d 1056; Hearing v. Wylie (1962......
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