Dwyer v. Ford Motor Co., No. A--29

• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)
• Writing for the Court: FRANCIS; WEINTRAUB; WEINTRAUB; HANEMAN
• Citation: 178 A.2d 161,36 N.J. 487
• Decision Date: 22 January 1962
• Docket Number: No. A--29
• Parties: Ruth DWYER, Petitioner-Appellant, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Respondent-Respondent.

Page 487

36 N.J. 487 178 A.2d 161 Ruth DWYER, Petitioner-Appellant,
v.
FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Respondent-Respondent. No. A--29. Supreme Court of New Jersey. Argued Oct. 24, 1961.
Decided Jan. 22, 1962.

Page 491

[178 A.2d 163] Aaron Gordon, Jersey City, for petitioner-appellant (Louis L. Cronson, West New York, on the brief; Hirschberg, Nashel, Zorn & Cronson, West New York, attorneys).

Verling C. Enteman, Newark, for respondent-respondent (Andrew S. Polito, Newark, of counsel).

The opinion of the court was delivered by

FRANCIS, J.

This is a heart death workmen's compensation case. The Division of Workmen's Compensation denied an award; the County Court and the Appellate Division affirmed. We granted certification.

Certification was allowed primarily to review the principle under which benefits are payable in heart attack cases, and the nature of the proof required in such cases to make them compensable.

Ciuba v. Irvington Varnish & Insulator Co., 27 N.J. 127, 141 A.2d 761 (1958), did away with the need for proof that the heart attack was caused or contributed to by an unusual employment effort or strain. That rule was supplanted by the doctrine that if the attack is caused or precipitated or contributed to by the ordinary stress or strain of the employment, a compensable accident comes into being. Thus, when an employee is suffering from an acute, or passively progressive or quiescent, heart condition, and the ordinary routine exertion of his regular work is too much for the heart, irrespective of whether the effort acts alone, or in conjunction or contribution with the weakness induced by the disease, to precipitate or accelerate or aggravate the attack, the resulting disability or death is within the statutory coverage. There is no requirement that the work effort be excessive in the sense of being unusual or not ordinarily engaged in. It is enough that a usual strain associated with the work was of itself too much at that time because of the condition of the heart, or that such routine effort in combination with the diseased condition of the heart produced the collapse. Compensability arises whenever

Page 492

the required exertion is too great for the man undertaking the work, whatever the degree of exertion or condition of his heart.

The reasoning process by which the facts in a particular case are evaluated may be further aided by certain inquiries. Did the disabling or fatal attack result Alone from the inexorable march of the disease? Was it the end result of the degenerative process in connection with which the employment stress was simply a coincidental condition, unrelated in any material way? Has it been shown by evidence, opinion or otherwise, that the exertion attendant upon the duties of employment, no matter how slight or how strenuous, and no matter with what other factors, such as pre-existing disease or predisposition to attack, it may be combined, was sufficient to contribute toward the attack or its aggravation? In short, where the heart has deteriorated to the point that potentially any appreciable degree of exertion carries a danger of precipitating, or so acting upon the condition as to accelerate, a disabling or fatal attack, if the effort or strain, which in fact precipitates or contributes to the attack, occurs during the course of the employment and as an ordinary or usual incident of the work, the resulting disability or death is compensable. Benefits are not lost because the amount of the work stress was such that it might or could be duplicated in routine activity about the home or in customary movements or effort while there. See Treloar v. Falmouth Docks & Engineering Co., Ltd. A.C. 481 (1933); 26 B.W.C.C. 214, 222. Nor is compensation to be denied because of proof [178 A.2d 164] that even if the accident had not happened the workman would have become totally disabled or would have died within a relatively short time by reason of the progress of his disease. Woodbury v. Frank B. Arata Fruit Co., 64 Idaho 227, 130 P.2d 870 (Sup.Ct.1942). As Dean Larson puts it:

'The general idea is that, even if the decedent would probably have died of cancer in any case, the employment is deemed for compensation

Page 493

purposes the cause of death if, due to a blow hastening the cancer, the employee dies today instead of six months from now.' 1 Workmen's Compensation Law, § 12.20, p. 175.

See also: Welch v. County of Essex, 6 N.J.Super. 422, 68 A.2d 787 (Cty.Ct.1949), affirmed 6 N.J.Super. 184, 70 A.2d 779 (App.Div.1950); Milne v. Atlantic Machine Tool Works, Inc., 137 N.J.L. 583, 61 A.2d 225 (Sup.Ct.1948); Voorhees v. Schoonmaker, 86 N.J.L. 500, 92 A. 280 (Sup.Ct.1914).

It does not follow from what we have written that a heart attack which occurs at work is, without more, compensable. The work connection as a precipitating, aggravating or accelerating factor must appear. The basic idea intended to be conveyed (and which we approve) is expressed in very simple terms in the English case of Clover, Clayton & Co., Ltd. v. Hughes, (1910) A.C. 242, 3 B.W.C.C. 275, cited with approval in both Ciuba, supra, 27 N.J. at page 135, 141 A.2d 764 and Hentz v. Janssen Dairy Corp., 122 N.J.L. 494, 496, 6 A.2d 409 (E. & A. 1939). There, Lord Loreburn expressed the test in this fashion:

'In other words, did he die from the disease alone or from the disease and employment taken together, looking at it broadly? Looking at it broadly, I say, and free from over nice conjectures: Was it the disease that did it or did the work he was doing help in any material degree?'

Naturally, the onus of establishing connection between a heart attack death and the work effort rests on the compensation claimant. The burden has been described in various ways but may be stated concisely in this fashion: Such claimant has the burden of showing by the preponderance of the believable evidence that the ordinary work effort or strain in reasonable probability contributed in some material degree to the precipitation, aggravation or acceleration of the existing heart disease and the death therefrom. In this context, the significance of 'some material degree' cannot be stated with mathematical precision. It means an appreciable degree; a degree greater than De minimis; it

Page 494

means that there was some employment exertion capable medically of helping the attack--of furthering its progress. We appreciate the difficulty in formulating a precise legal rule. There has been much discussion and agitation by cardiologists for and against the adoption of minimum medical criteria for use by the expert witness in assessing the probability of causal connection between work effort and heart attacks. But no such uniformly accepted standards have been approved. See McNiece, Heart Disease and The Law (Prentice-Hall 1961) ch. 17, § 2(c), p. 118. And, of course, the courts cannot state in advance whether such criteria would transgress Legal standards by which they must determine causality. Id. 119; & ch. 18, § 4, p. 132. Moreover, whatever difficulty may be in the medical profession in reaching common ground as to the test to be applied, the Division of Workmen's Compensation and the judiciary cannot avoid their obligation to administer the compensation law. Legislature has bestowed the right to monetary benefits for accidental injury arising out of and in the course of employment. And on the judicial scene existence of the right implies coexistence of effective means of enforcing it.

The rule outlined above is not just a catch phrase; it is not simply a formula [178 A.2d 165] to be mouthed in making an affirmative assertion of causal connection. The legal conclusion of cause and effect is ordinarily dependent upon evidence of medical causation advanced by physician witnesses in the form of opinion based upon the facts and circumstances attending the heart attack. But we repeat that the Mere assertion of reasonably probable contributory work connection by a medical witness cannot justify an award. The facts of the situation under examination in their totality must demonstrate causality by the greater weight of the credible evidence. In this area the reasons for the assertion are more important than the assertion itself. Stanley Co. of America v. Hercules Powder Co., 29 N.J.Super. 545, 562, 103 A.2d 33 (App.Div.1954); reversed on

Page 495

other grounds 16 N.J. 295, 108 A.2d 616, 45 A.L.R.2d 1106 (1954). Explanation of the physiological reactions of the diseased or ailing heart to the work strain in terms of sole or contributory cause and effect must generally be regarded as indispensable. The facts and circumstances surrounding the work effort and the heart attack, the medical opinion as to connection between the two, and the explanation of the connection from a medical viewpoint must coalesce in support of a finding by the greater weight of the evidence that the effct was at least contributorily responsible in some material way for the attack.

Some of the language running through the opinions of the various tribunals which have had this cause for consideration gives the impression that proof of a specific incident of work strain or effort coincidental with or immediately preceding the heart attack is regarded as an essential step in the establishment of causality. And the heart specialist whose testimony formed the basis for the denial of compensation said plainly that he would not regard a heart attack as resulting from employment unless there was 'a stress or strain incident just prior to the onset of his initial sumptom which is usually pain.' Proof of such a specific incident is not required as a matter of law, although it cannot be doubted that evidence of work effort closely followed by well recognized symptoms, such as pain, shortness of breath, collapse, etc., points with more probative force to a reasonably probable relation between the two events than if they were separated by a substantial period of time. This is...