Joseph Dixon Crucible Co. v. Law .

• Decision Date: 29 May 1947
• Docket Number: Nos. 257, 258.,s. 257, 258.
• Parties: JOSEPH DIXON CRUCIBLE CO. et al. v. LAW (two cases).
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

135 N.J.L. 528

53 A.2d 215

JOSEPH DIXON CRUCIBLE CO. et al.

v.LAW (two cases).

Nos. 257, 258.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

May 29, 1947.

Workmen's Compensation proceeding by John Law, claimant, opposed by Joseph Dixon Crucible Company, employer, and the Ocean Accident & Guarantee Corporation, insurance carrier. To review a judgment reversing an award of the Workmen's Compensation Bureau denying compensation, the employer and insurance carrier bring certiorari. The claimant died and Clara Law individually became a defendant.

Judgment reversed.

See also 134 N.J.L. 591, 49 A. 2d 576.

January term, 1947, before CASE, C.J., and HEHER and COLIE, JJ.

Charles J. Gormley and Wall, Haight, Carey & Hartpence, all of Jersey City, for prosecutors.

Raymond Dawson, Allen C. Mathias and Edwards, Smith & Dawson, all of Jersey City, for defendants.

CASE, Chief Justice.

Stripping the case of confusion that has arisen because of the subsequent death of the injured employee and of procedural steps relating thereto, the meritorious question for decision on this writ is whether the employee, John Law, suffered an accident on March 27, 1944, which arose out of and in the course of his employment and resulted in his temporary disability for five months and a permanent disability total in character. Counsel for defendants herein state that as the question, and we believe it to be so.

On March 27, 1944, Law became ill while at work, and on May 1, 1944, he filed his petition with the Workmen's Compensation Bureau alleging that his incapacity resulted from an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment. The Deputy Commissioner found, after the hearing, that the petitioner had failed to establish his claim. On appeal, the Hudson County Common Pleas reversed. The employer and its insurer prosecute this writ of certiorari to review the judgment entered in the Pleas.

Law, seventy-nine years of age, was a tool worker in the employ of Joseph Dixon Crucible Co. At least as early as March, 1943,-a year before the alleged accident-and, in the opinion of Law's physician, for ten or fifteen years before that, the petitioner suffered from arteriosclerosis, hypertension and chronic myocarditis. Those ailments tended to become progressively worse. On March 29, 1944, two days after the alleged accident now counted upon, Dr. Duffy, the physician who had treated Law the year before and who was later a witness for him at the hearing, was summoned to his bedside. Dr. Duffy found the patient with weak and irregular heart sounds, low blood pressure, rales in chest, distended abdomen, diarrhea and bloody sputum. He diagnosed the ailment as a coronary occlusion. Dr. Kaufman, a heart specialist, who examined Law on the same day and who also was a witness for him at the hearing, made a diagnosis of ‘hypertensive arteriosclerotic vascular disease, mycardiac degeneration, as a result of the coronary disease. Digitalis effect and cardiac deficiency.’ Answering a hypothetical question on the assumption that the factors were therein truthfully stated, Dr. Kaufman further testified that in his opinion the work Law did on the morning of March 27, 1944, was responsible for the formation of the coronary occlusion which resulted in the heart failure and the condition in which Law was found on March 29th. But some of the important factors in that question rested solely upon Law's testimony, and it was the finding of the Deputy Commissioner-in which we concur-that ‘This petitioner is 79 years old and I am inclined to think that from brooding over his troubles he has fixed in his mind...