Graybar Electric Co., Inc. v. Industrial Commission of Utah

• Decision Date: 07 March 1929
• Docket Number: 4773
• Citation: 73 Utah 568,276 P. 161
• Court: Utah Supreme Court
• Parties: GRAYBAR ELECTRIC CO., Inc., v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF UTAH et al

276 P. 161

73 Utah 568

GRAYBAR ELECTRIC CO., Inc., v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION OF UTAH et al

No. 4773

Supreme Court of Utah

March 7, 1929

Proceeding under the Industrial Commission Act by Walter C Frendt, employee, opposed by the Graybar Electric Company Inc., employer and self-insurer, to review an award of the Industrial Commission allowing compensation.

AFFIRMED.

Badger, Rich & Rich, of Salt Lake City, for plaintiff.

George P. Parker, Atty. Gen., and M. Logan Rich, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant commission.

Romney, Nelson & Eccles, of Salt Lake City, for defendant Frendt.

FOLLAND, J. CHERRY, STRAUP, ELIAS HANSEN, and EPHRAIM HANSON, JJ., concur.

OPINION

FOLLAND, J.

This is a proceeding to review an award of compensation by the Industrial Commission in favor of Walter C. Frendt and against the Graybar Electric Company, a self-insurer. The only question presented by this review is whether or not, under the facts, the employe was injured by an accident arising out of or in the course of his employment. The plaintiff denies there was any accident within the meaning of the Industrial Act (Laws 1917, c. 100, as amended). It does not deny the employe was injured while in the course of the employment, but does contend that the injury was not the result of an accident. The findings of the commission, material to the question before us, are:

3. "That on the 19th day of April, 1927, Walter C. Frendt, the applicant herein named, while regularly employed by the Graybar Electric Company, and while engaged in moving heavy reels and coils of wire, sustained a severe strain causing a left incomplete traumatic hernia and sacro iliac strain. That he was operated for inguinal hernia on May 3rd, 1927, and made an uneventful recovery from said operation.

4. "That the applicant on the date of said injury wherein he received a sacro iliac strain, was afflicted with sinus trouble, which, as a result of said injury, became localized in his back. That he was totally disabled from the 1st day of April, 1928, to the date of the hearing (May 14th, 1928) and will, in all probability, continue to be totally disabled until such time as he receives proper medical treatment for the chronic infection in the sinus.

Conclusion. "In view of the foregoing findings, the Commission concludes that Walter C. Frendt was injured by reason of an accident arising out of or in the course of his employment while regularly employed by the Graybar Electric Company, as alleged in his application." The employe worked for plaintiff regularly for about 15 months prior to his injury without missing a day, and received $ 25 per week. On April 19, 1927, in the course of his regular employment, while putting into stock some heavy coils of wire, and while "heaving on the rolls," he experienced a sharp pain in his left side in the region of the groin, felt sick to his stomach, and, finding the pain did not subside, left work and reported the matter to his foreman. A few days later he undertook to load a truck with coils of galvanized iron wire, each coil weighing approximately 150 pounds. The coils were in a stack three or four feet high. He lifted one of the coils from the stack, and, upon turning around for the purpose of putting it on the truck, he felt a pain in his back and another pain in the left side above the groin. The pain was so sharp he had to drop the coil and stand a while. This condition was reported to the manager who sent the employe to a doctor. It was found he had suffered a left incomplete hernia and a sacroiliac strain. He was operated on for the hernia, and made an uneventful recovery. We are not concerned here with the hernia. The sacroiliac condition did not respond to treatment. The employe now wears a brace or corset, still complains of pain and soreness in the back, and is unable to work.

Upon a thorough examination by a nose and throat specialist it was found that the employe had a chronic sinus infection with polypus in the nose. While in the army an operation had been performed on his nose and some of the bone taken out. It is the opinion of one physician that the pain in the back "may be arthritis of the lumbar sacro or sacro iliac joint," and that it was the result of the injury, plus infection from the nasal condition. Another physician examined him and gave as his diagnosis that this was "chronic infective arthritis of left sacro iliac joint, possibly super-imposed upon an injury."

There seems to be no dispute with regard to the facts, but it is earnestly contended by plaintiff that there was no accident which either caused or contributed to the condition from which Frendt is now suffering. Its position is stated as follows:

"There was infection in his system and it seems to have made itself manifest by the pain in the back or the sacroiliac strain. It required large imagination to say that anything connected with Mr. Frendt's employment contributed to the localization of the infection in the region of the back. But if the strain of his natural and ordinary work did contribute to the pain caused by the antedating infection, there was no accident in connection with the employment to cause or bring about the trouble. In other words, whatever the physical condition of the employe may have been from antedating causes of sinus trouble or infection there was nothing in connection with his employment of an accidental nature which was responsible for his trouble.

"It seems to us that there must be a distinction made between an injury and an accident. In the case at bar the applicant felt his pain, which was something out of the ordinary, at a particular time and place and it was unexpected, but that cannot be said to be an accident. The pain and the manner of it, the time of it and the occurrence of it, however sudden and severe it may have been, was the man's physical condition. It was not caused by an accident and if it can be termed an injury it was not by reason of an accident.

In support of this position the plaintiff quotes the definition of the word "accident" from Webster's New International Dictionary and 1 Honnold on Workmen's Compensation, pp. 274-278; cites the following Utah cases; Pinyon Queen Mining Co. et al. v. Industrial Commission, 59 Utah 402, 204 323, 204 P. 323; Tintic Milling Co. v. Industrial Commission, 60...