Hentz v. Janssen Dairy Corp.

• Citation: 6 A.2d 409,122 N.J.L. 494
• Decision Date: 23 May 1939
• Docket Number: No. 16.,16.
• Parties: HENTZ v. JANSSEN DAIRY CORPORATION.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court (New Jersey)

6 A.2d 409

122 N.J.L. 494

HENTZ

v. JANSSEN DAIRY CORPORATION.

No. 16.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

May 23, 1939.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Proceeding by Hilda Hentz, administratrix of the estate of Martha Malley, deceased, to recover compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act for the death of Christopher Malley, employee, opposed by the Janssen Dairy Corporation, employer. From a judgment setting aside an award of compensation by the Workmen's Compensation Bureau and a judgment of the court of common pleas sustaining such award, 121 N.J.L. 160, 1 A.2d 751, petitioner appeals.

Reversed.

Abraham H. Gottlieb, Theodore S. Chazin, and Maurice C. Brigadier, all of Jersey City, and Burke, Sheridan & Hourigan, and Edmund B. Hourigan, all of Union City, for appellant.

Coult, Satz & Tomlinson and Joseph Coult, all of Newark, for respondent.

BODINE, Justice.

The deceased has been, for years, the driver of a milk truck making retail deliveries at homes in Jersey City. On March 4, 1936, he reported for work at 2 in the morning, and soon after commenced deliveries. The streets were very snowy, and it was necessary for him to walk up and down steep grades in order to make deliveries and to reclaim empty bottles. While in the course of his employment and while ascending a hill to the place where he had left his truck, he felt a sharp pain in his left side. It appeared that he suffered a coronary thrombosis, and although he partially recovered he never regained his health and died shortly thereafter. Both the Bureau and the court of Common Pleas properly awarded compensation for the deceased and his widow. Such findings should not be lightly disturbed.

The rule of law which we deem applicable to the situation was stated in Bernstein Furniture Co. v. Kelly, 115 N.J.L. 500, 180 A. 832, as follows: "Suffice it to say that an accidental strain of a heart, even though the heart was previously weakened by disease, may be a compensable injury under our statute when as in this case, the accident arose out of and in the course of the employment."

In this case there is no doubt that the deceased suffered an accidental strain of the heart in the course of his employment, and that the strain causing the injury resulted from the employment which happened to be unusually hard on the day in question.

The Supreme Court erroneously considered the circumstance that the heart had been weakened by the strain of work over a long period of time as excluding recovery, but this is a circumstance which under our cases and those decided in England, could make no difference where the accident arose out of and in the course of the employment.

In the case of Treloar v. Falmouth Docks & Engineering Co., Ltd, (House of Lords) January 30, 1933, 26 Butterworths' Workmen's Compensation Cases 214, a dock laborer, 46 years of age, gave himself a jerk while trying to steady a swinging load with his hook. He continued to work. There was a rest period for a quarter of an hour, when in order to bring another sack nearer to the place where he was sitting he raised his hook to stick it in the sack. He fell forward and died due to myocarditis. Lord Buckmaster said at page 222: "If a man who is engaged in doing work, and as part of that work and in the course of it does something which he might do outside, but which, none the less, happens in the course of and arising out of his work and it causes his death, the accident has arisen out of and in the course of his employment. I put to counsel in the course of this case an illustration which appears to me perfectly sound: Supposing a workman is engaged in putting books on library shelves and he lifts the books, and in the course of lifting the books to put them on the library shelves, owing to the fact that the action of lifting his arm causes a strain upon his heart which his heart cannot bear and he falls down dead, none the less the accident arises out of and in the course of his employment."

In James v. Partridge Jones & John Paton (House of Lords), 26 Butterworths' Workmen's Compensation Cases 277, a workman, who was suffering from disease of the coronary arteries brought on by syphilis and whose condition was such that he might die from heart failure at any moment, whether working or not, was working as a dipper in a galvanizing department. He was engaged in the operation of cleaning out the dross, which was of a laborious nature. This operation being finished, he sat down and within ten minutes died. The post-mortem examination resulted in a report that the cause of death was angina pectoris. There was medical evidence to the effect that the operation of dressing had accelerated the workman's death.

Lord Buckmaster quoted at length Lord Loreburn in Clover, Clayton & Co. v. Hughes, 3 Butterworths' Workmen's Compensation Cases 284: "'I do not think we should attach any importance to the fact that there was no strain or exertion out of the ordinary. It is found by the county court judge that the strain in fact caused the rupture, meaning, no doubt, that if it had not been for the strain, the rupture would not have occurred when it did. If the degree of exertion beyond what is usual had to be considered in these cases, there must be some standard of exertion, varying in every trade. Nor do I think we should attach any importance to the fact that this man's health was as described * * *. An accident arises out of the employment when the required exertion producing...