Guidry v. Sline Indus. Painters, Inc.

• Decision Date: 02 July 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-C-3116,81-C-3116
• Citation: 418 So.2d 626
• Parties: Mrs. Alcide GUIDRY, Indiv., etc. v. SLINE INDUSTRIAL PAINTERS, INC. et al.
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court

Page 626

418 So.2d 626

Mrs. Alcide GUIDRY, Indiv., etc. v. SLINE INDUSTRIAL PAINTERS, INC. et al.

No. 81-C-3116.

Supreme Court of Louisiana.

July 2, 1982.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 3, 1982.

Christopher M. Trahan, Raggio, Cappel, Chozen & Bernard, Lake Charles, for applicant.

Bernard H. McLaughlin, Jr., Robert S. Dampf, Stockwell, Sievert, Viccelio, Clements & Shaddock, Lake Charles, for respondent.

CALOGERO, Justice.

Plaintiff's husband, an industrial painter, died shortly after suffering a heart attack on his job. It was an acute myocardial infarction secondary to atherosclerotic heart disease.

The narrow question in this workmen's compensation case is whether the admitted accident (heart attack) which caused Mr. Guidry's death, to be compensable, must in some degree have been causally related to physical stress, strain, or exertion of the job; and if so whether Guidry's heart attack was related, in part, to work stress, strain, or exertion. ¹ Alcide Guidry, a fifty-three year old industrial painter, suffered an acute myocardial infarction secondary to atherosclerotic heart disease minutes after pausing for a smoke break while at work. After a trial on the merits, the judge denied recovery both for compensation benefits and for penalties and attorney's fees. The Third Circuit Court of Appeal was inclined to affirm the district court judgment in favor of the defendant, but declined to do so because they believed that Adams v. New Orleans Public Service, Inc., (La.1982), No. 81-C-0784 was controlling and required a holding for the plaintiff in all cases where death from a myocardial infarction occurs on the job. Guidry v. Sline Industrial Painters, Inc., 406 So.2d 303 (La.App. 3rd Cir. 1981). Between the time of the Court of Appeal opinion in this case and the application by the defendant for writs, we granted a rehearing in the Adams case. Because the Court of Appeal had resolved this case on the strength of the non-final Adams decision of this Court, we granted relator's writ application.

We affirm the Court of Appeal judgment in favor of plaintiff, not for the reason relied upon by the Court of Appeal and espoused originally in Adams (that the accident happened on the job and nothing more is required) but rather for the reason that Guidry's myocardial infarction both occurred on the job and was causally related in some measure to physical stress, strain or exertion of his job. We disagree with the trial judge's determination that Guidry's accident (heart attack) was unrelated to his work on December 28, 1979. In achieving this result in the case under consideration, we expressly reject the following language in Adams on original hearing: ² "where an injury occurs suddenly or unexpectedly it is compensable despite the absence of any physical stress or exertion," and "[t]he only pertinent inquiry is whether in fact, the accident [heart attack] happened on the job."

The requirements for a successful claim for workers' compensation as set out in La.R.S. 23:1031 are as follows:

If an employee ... receives personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, his employer shall pay compensation in the amounts, on the conditions, and to the person or persons hereinafter designated. (Emphasis supplied.)

An accident occurs in the course of employment when it happens during the time of employment and at a place contemplated by the employment. Lisonbee v. Chicago Mill and Lumber Company, 278 So.2d 5 (La.1973); Kern v. Southport Mill, 174 La. 432, 141 So. 19 (1932). Such a showing alone, however, does not satisfy Louisiana's dual requirement, although it will assist the worker over the first hurdle. ³ There is the additional requirement that the accident "arise out of the employment." ⁴ Arising out of employment contemplates the accident's being the result of some risk to which the employee is subjected in the course of his employment and to which he would not have been subjected had he not been so employed. Lisonbee, supra at 9 citing Kern, supra 141 So. at 21. Furthermore, this risk of employment from which injury resulted should be one greater than that occasioned by a person not engaged in the employment. Lisonbee, supra, citing Myers v. Louisiana Ry. & Nav. Co., 140 La. 937, 74 So. 256 (1917). ⁵

Subsequent appellate decisions have applied jointly the time, place and circumstance test of the Kern case, and the increased risk doctrine of the Myers decision. Turner v. United States Fidelity & Guaranty Company, 339 So.2d 917 (La.App. 3rd Cir. 1976); Mitchell v. Employers Mut. Liability Ins. Co., 341 So.2d 35 (La.App. 3rd Cir.), writ refused 342 So.2d 1121 (La.1977).

Malone and Johnson, with credit to Professor Larson, interpret the court's recognition of the mutual dependence of the dual requirements "in the course of" and "arising out of" as an adoption of the "positional risk doctrine." Malone and Johnson, supra at 289. So, as relates to ordinary traumatic incidents, such as being struck by a car or by lightning or by being assaulted by a stranger, being on the job is an aid to establishing that an ordinary traumatic incident because it arose out of employment was likewise in the course of employment. Malone and Johnson, supra §§ 191-200, 382 et seq.; Kern, supra.

A class of accidents defying definition under the "positional risk doctrine", however, are those which, while occurring when the employee is undeniably performing the duties for which he was hired, are related partly to the employee's personal physical condition. ⁶ Malone and Johnson conclude therefore, supra at 289, "[r]esorting to Larson's phrase-making again, recovery under the positional risk doctrine is limited to neutral risks, risks that are unrelated to the worker's bodily deficiencies ... and are also unaffected by the nature of his particular job or his working environment."

To deny compensation to those workers who bring a personal risk to the job, however, contravenes the tradition that the employer takes his employee as he finds him. Chism v. Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp., 332 So.2d 784 (La.1976).

In the face of this dilemma, Louisiana courts have relied upon the "increased risk" approach to such claims Malone and Johnson, supra at 292. The pertinent justification is couched in Lisonbee supra at page 9 quoting 259 So.2d 374, 377 (La.App. 2d Cir.).

The principle underlying the enactment of the workmen's compensation statute--that those who enjoy the product of a business should ultimately bear the cost of injuries incident thereto--makes sense only if the injuries bear some significant relationship to the business operation. Such a relationship must be determined with reference to the particular facts of each case inasmuch as there is no exact rule for such determination.

Myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) have been found to satisfy the statutory requirements of personal injury by accident. Fields v. Sperry Rand Corp., 343 So.2d 339 (La.App. 2d Cir.), cert. denied 345 So.2d 902 (La.1977); Roussel v. Colonial Sugars Co., 318 So.2d 37 (La.1975); Brown v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chem. Corp., 250 So.2d 99 (La.App. 4th Cir.), cert. denied 259 La. 807, 253 So.2d 66 (1971); Hemphill v. Tremont Lumber Co., 209 La. 885, 25 So.2d 625 (1946). Likewise it is undisputed that the worker who experiences his heart attack/accident during an authorized rest period does so in the "course of his employment". Smith v. Walker, 35 So.2d 766 (La.App. 2d Cir. 1948); St. Alexandre v. Texas Co., 28 So.2d 385 (La.App.Orl.Cir.1946).

The more difficult question is whether the heart attack must be the consequence of some increased job associated risk; in that sense, whether it can be said to arise out of the employment. This focus on the heart accident and the need for a causal connection with the work is consistent with the cases decided by this court.

We will undertake to review the jurisprudence of this Court in that area.

In awarding compensation based on heart incidents, the early decisions focused on physical exertion and heat. In Hemphill v. Tremont Lumber Co., 209 La. 885, 25 So.2d 625 (1946), a carpenter's normal activities for the day in question required him to carry four 95 pound rolls of composition paper up a ladder to the roof and work there in the sun. When he finished the job, he complained of severe chest pains and died forty five minutes later on his way home from visiting the doctor. The Court found supra at 626-627 that:

Since this case does not involve an accident causing external injuries or producing objective symptoms, we must look to the testimony of the medical experts to determine whether this is one of those cases that comes within our well-settled jurisprudence that the legal requirements are present to constitute an accident and an injury is compensable where excessive heat, heavy lifting or other strenuous efforts, although usual and customary, cause or contribute to a physical breakdown or accelerate its occurrence because of a pre-existing condition. (Citations omitted) (Emphasis supplied)

Other similar cases followed. Sepulvado v. Mansfield Hardwood Lumber Co., 75 So.2d 529 (La.App. 2d Cir. 1954); Clifton v. Arnold, 87 So.2d 386 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1957); Talbot v. Trinity Universal Ins. Co., 99 So.2d 811 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1958); Brian v. Employers Casualty Co., 111 So.2d 161 (La.App. 2d Cir. 1959); McKnight v. Clemons, 114 So.2d 114 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1959); Andrepont v. Calcasieu Paper Co., 131 So.2d 585 (La.App. 3d Cir. 1961); Spivey v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 127 So.2d 297 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1961); Young v. Old Colony Insurance Co., 150 So.2d 892 (La.App. 4th Cir.) cert. refused 244 La. 472, 152 So.2d 564 (1963).

What might be referred to as the current jurisprudence in this Court in heart attack worker compensation cases begins with Bertrand v. Coal Operators Casualty Co., 253 La. 1115, 221 So.2d 816 (La.1969), the leading case insofar as establishing the rebuttable causation...