Hanson v. Independent School District 11-J, 5525
Citation | 294 P. 513,50 Idaho 81 |
Decision Date | 28 November 1930 |
Docket Number | 5525 |
Parties | EMIL HANSON, Employee, Claimant and Respondent, v. INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT 11-J, ELMORE AND OWYHEE COUNTIES, IDAHO, Employer, and STATE INSURANCE FUND, Surety, Appellants |
Court | United States State Supreme Court of Idaho |
WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION LAW - COMPENSABLE INJURY - AGGRAVATION OF PRE-EXISTING DISEASE.
1. Where accident proximately causes injury, compensation must be awarded, though injury would not have resulted except for previous diseased condition.
2. Where injury results partly from accident and partly from pre-existing disease, Industrial Accident Board must limit award to results of accident alone.
3. That accident following which employee's appendix was ruptured merely aggravated pre-existing chronic appendicitis did not prevent granting compensation.
4. That employee's previous condition might have terminated as injuriously does not deprive him of right to compensation if accident precipitated injury.
5. Finding that aggravation of bus driver's chronic appendicitis was not different from result of any other physical activity should not prevent awarding compensation for accident.
APPEAL from the District Court of the Third Judicial District, for Owyhee County. Hon. Chas. F. Koelsch, Judge.
Proceeding under Workmen's Compensation Law. Judgment of District Court affirmed in part and reversed in part and cause remanded to Industrial Accident Board, with directions.
Judgment of the trial court remanding cause to the Industrial Accident Board affirmed, reversed as to the grounds therein specified, and cause remanded; costs awarded to appellant. Petition for rehearing denied.
Scatterday & Stone, for Appellants.
Where a workman is suffering with an active and progressive disease at the time an accident is suffered, it is the duty of the board to ascertain whether his condition of disability resulted from the accident suffered in the course of his employment and arising out of it, or whether the disability resulted from the disease, and, if from both, the proportion in which the accident contributed. No compensation can be claimed for results that would have followed from the pre-existing disease if no accident had occurred. (C. S sec. 6324; Springfield District Coal Min. Co. v Industrial Com., 300 Ill. 28, 132 N.E. 752; West Side Coal & Min. Co. v. Industrial Com., 321 Ill. 61 151 N.E. 593; Robinson-Pettet Co. v. Workmen's Compensation Board, 201 Ky. 719, 258 S.W. 318; Employers' Liability Assur. Corp. v. Gardner, 204 Ky. 216, 263 S.W. 743; B. F. Avery & Sons v. Carter, 205 Ky. 548, 266 S.W. 50; South Mountain Coal Co. v. Haddix, 213 Ky. 568, 281 S.W. 493; Borgsted v. Shults Bread Co., 180 A.D. 229, 167 N.Y.S. 647.)
E. B. Smith and Wm. M. Morgan, for Respondent.
The courts have generally held that where a weakened, abnormal or diseased condition of a workman is aggravated, or a new lesion is accelerated, by accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, compensation must be paid for his resulting incapacity; nor will a showing of disease, abnormality or previous weakness of the injured part deprive a claimant of the right to recover compensation. (In re Larson, 48 Idaho 136, 279 P. 1087; Robbins v. Original Gas Engine Co., 191 Mich. 122, 157 N.W. 437; Hurley v. Selden-Breck Const. Co., 193 Mich. 197, 159 N.W. 311; Tintic Milling Co. v. Industrial Com., 60 Utah 14, 23 A. L. R. 325, 206 P. 278; General American Tank Car Corp. v. Weireck, 77 Ind.App. 242, 133 N.E. 391; Hogan v. Twin City Amusement Trust Estate, 155 Minn. 199, 193 N.W. 122; Clark v. Lehigh Valley Coal Co., 264 Pa. 529, 107 A. 858; Glennon's Case, 236 Mass. 542, 128 N.E. 942; Baker v. State Industrial Acc. Com., 128 Ore. 369, 274 P. 905; Pinyon Queen Min. Co. v. Industrial Com., 59 Utah 402, 204 P. 323.)
Respondent was employed by the appellant, Independent School District 11-J of Elmore and Owyhee Counties, as janitor and school bus driver. Prior to the occasion resulting in the alleged injury, the basis of the dispute herein, respondent was a strong able-bodied man, able to perform arduous manual labor. As was afterwards disclosed, however, he had chronic appendicitis; that several times during October, in driving the school bus, he noticed that the jolting and jerking of the vehicle over a certain portion of the road, which was extremely rocky, caused him rather severe pains in the abdomen, and on Friday, October 19, 1928, an unusual jolt gave him a sudden severe burning pain like a flash in his right side; that upon returning to the schoolhouse he was unable to perform his usual duties there, and the next day was in extreme pain, remaining in bed. Thereafter on October 22d he was operated upon, when it was found that his appendix had ruptured, torn loose at its base from the place of attachment to the cecum; a general condition of peritonitis prevailed in the abdominal cavity and a coprolith of fecal concretion was found which had evidently been forming for some months prior to October, 1928.
The appendix was removed, an opening left into the cecum and drainage established. Owing to the gangrenous condition he had a fecal fistula and about six weeks afterwards developed empyema. His pleural cavity was opened and drained and later a rib resection was done; an abscess developed under the liver which ruptured through the diaphragm and at the time of the hearing, August 23, 1929, he had a ventral hernia and was still confined to the hospital.
The controversy herein revolves around the finding of the board that "the jolting and jarring which the claimant received on October 19th, 1928, did not cause the disease (chronic appendicitis) with which claimant was suffering on said day, but did aggravate it; that such aggravation was not any different or of any greater extent than any other physical activity that claimant might have engaged in." The board denied compensation evidently on appellant's theory that the disability would have arisen regardless of the jolting and jarring, and because the accident did not cause but merely aggravated the disease or pre-existing condition, which was active and progressive at the time of the accident.
An accident proximately causing an injury, though such injury would not have so resulted from such accident, in the absence of a previous disease or weakened condition, nevertheless justifies and under a liberal construction of the statutes requires compensation.
A finding by the board that such injury aggravates or accelerates a previous disease or condition is not sufficient. The board must find specifically whether there is an accident and whether such accident did or did not proximately cause the injury, that is, the ruptured appendix and serious consequences. The presence of a previous disease or weakened condition is immaterial. If it should be determined that respondent's injuries resulted partly but not entirely from the alleged accident, it is the duty of the...
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