Kleman v. Ford Motor Co.

• Decision Date: 13 February 1976
• Docket Number: No. 45786,45786
• Citation: 239 N.W.2d 449,307 Minn. 218
• Parties: Elizabeth Annie KLEMAN, Widow of Earl B. Kleman, Deceased, Employee, Respondent, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Self-Insured, Relator.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 449

239 N.W.2d 449

307 Minn. 218

Elizabeth Annie KLEMAN, Widow of Earl B. Kleman, Deceased Employee, Respondent, v. FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Self-Insured, Relator.

No. 45786.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Feb. 13, 1976.

Dorsey, Marquart, Windhorst, West & Halladay and Wm. E. Martin and Robert L. Hobbins, Minneapolis, for relator.

Okerman & Susee, Lee A. Bernet, III, and Jan Henry Susee, Richfield, for respondent.

Considered and decided by the court without oral argument.

YETKA, Justice.

The relator seeks review of a decision ¹ of the Workers' Compensation Board affirming the compensation judge's award of dependency benefits to respondent, widow of the deceased employee. The critical question before the board and on appeal is whether the employee's heart attack arose out of and in the course of his employment. We affirm.

The employee died at 3:10 p.m. on January 25, 1973. The cause of death was atherosclerotic heart disease with acute myocardial infarction. The employee was 52 years old when he died. He was overweight and had been treated for hypertension since the summer of 1972. In August 1972 he was treated for edema of both legs. This was considered at the compensation hearing as an indication of some degree of heart failure. He also had a borderline high serum cholesterol. The autopsy disclosed that the employee had an advanced condition of degenerative atherosclerotic heart disease.

The autopsy was performed by Dr. Frank Kapps approximately 3 hours after employee's death. Microscopic examination disclosed a very recent thrombus (blood clot) at the pinpoint lumen of the coronary artery. Dr. Kapps estimated that the thrombus formed within 24 hours of death. Microscopic examination disclosed physical change in the coronary tissue which indicated that the infarction process had begun at least 12 hours before death. Dr. Kapps testified that process most likely began about 24 to 30 hours before death, but with 48 hours as an outside maximum. He stated that the infarction could have been caused by or could have caused the thrombus. He couldn't state which with any degree of certainty.

Quite a bit of testimony was presented in regard to employee's duties at work. It is apparent that some of his duties were not physically taxing while others were, such as lifting door panels and piling them to maintain inventory levels. The employee had been working mandatory overtime for several months prior to his death, including 10 hours each day of the week of his death. He had occasionally complained about the overtime.

His wife testified as to his demeanor during the week of his death. During the week he appeared tired and irritable and complained about too much walking, strenuous reaching, and stretching. On Monday evening he looked all right. On Tuesday night he complained of chest pains and stated that he had been doing heavy lifting and strenuous reaching. On Wednesday he was again tired and irritable and complained about heavy lifting. However, he slept soundly both Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

On Thursday he got up as usual to begin work at 5 a.m. As was his custom, he called his wife at 8:45 a.m. He asked her to pick up a bottle of Pepto Bismol if she went to the drugstore and added that he would not work overtime if he didn't feel any better by 1:30 p.m. At approximately 2:40 p.m., after talking to Louis Williams for 4 or 5 minutes at his work area, the employee went limp and fell.

In response to the questions of the compensation judge, Dr. Kapps expounded on his view of the specific etiology of death. The myocardial infarction occurred at least 12 hours before his death which would put it before starting work the day of his death. Although he thought that the thrombus in the right coronary artery probably caused the infarction, he was not certain of this. He felt that this occlusion was not necessarily fatal. He also could not say whether the employee had another myocardial infarction at work.

Dr. Thomas Russell, a cardiologist, testified for the employer. Based on the employee's record of treatment with his family doctor, his medical records with the employer and the autopsy report, Dr. Russell cited cardiac arrest from myocardial infarction secondary to severe atherosclerotic coronary artery disease as the cause of death. It was his opinion that employment was not a substantial causal factor in employee's death.

On cross-examination, Dr. Russell admitted the possibility of a strain at work the day prior to death causing the infarction. In response to a question of the compensation judge, he attributed the final demise to ventricular fibrillation or ventricular standstill or absence of electrical activity.

The compensation judge found that the employee's heart attack arose out of and in the course of his employment. The board found that the evidence as a whole supported that determination and our examination of the record leads us to the same conclusion. Accordingly, the decision of the board will not be disturbed on appeal.

Respondent is allowed attorneys fees of $350 on this appeal.

Affirmed.

PETERSON, Justice (dissenting).

Decedent employee died as the result of a cardiac arrest occurring during his workday. The issue is whether his death arose out of his employment. The decision of the Workers' Compensation Board adopting the findings of the compensation judge is notable for failure to consider the medical evidence essential to decision. It is clear beyond dispute that decedent suffered from a severe and progressively worsening atherosclerotic condition of the heart--in the words of claimant's own expert medical witness, Dr. Frank Kapps: 'He was ill. This was a borrowed-time heart, so to speak.'

It is settled at the outset that the burden is upon the petitioner to establish a causal connection between the employment and the injury, in this case the fatal heart attack. Dudovitz v. Shoppers City, Inc., 282 Minn. 322, 164 N.W.2d 873 (1969). The board itself has in the past recognized that '(t)he mere fact that the heart symptoms developed concurrently with the work activities does not raise an inference of causal relation to the employment and is not sufficient to establish a basis for compensability in the absence of conclusive evidence to the contrary,' Kolflat v. Northern Ordnance Co., 23 W.C.D. 399, 402 (1965), affirmed, 274 Minn. 104, 142 N.W.2d 588 (1966), for, as the board itself later elaborated, '(m)ost employees work a minimum of eight hours a day, or 1/3 of the day, and therefore many people die of heart attacks while on the job,' Stibbs v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 24 W.C.D. 18, 20 (1966), affirmed, 277 Minn. 248, 152 N.W.2d 318 (1967). And in Stibbs the board cited its prior decision in Brumfield v. Hennepin County, 21 W.C.D. 29 (1959), which stands for the proposition that care must be exercised in evaluating the physical and mental stress on the job in cases involving heart attacks, lest the requirement that a heart attack arise out of employment be effectively eliminated from the workers' compensation statute. If it were otherwise, the workers' compensation statute would become an unintended form of life insurance.

Our review of the board's findings of fact is, of course, limited to determining whether those findings have 'sufficient basis of inference reasonably to be drawn from the facts,' MacNamara v. Jennie H. Boyd Trust, 286 Minn. 163, 166, 177 N.W.2d 398, 400 (1970); and if the opinions of medical experts differ as to the causal relationship between a heart attack and a person's employment, and if there is credible evidence upon which the board's finding is based, we will not substitute our judgment for that of the board as to which is the preferred opinion, Dudovitz v. Shoppers City, Inc., supra. We are not, however, bound by assumptions or inferences made by the board without substantial support in the record, Jones v. Schiek's Cafe, 277 Minn. 273, 152 N.W.2d 356 (1967), and '(i)f the findings of the commission are unsupported by competent evidence they cannot stand.' Johnson v. D. B. Rosenblatt, Inc., 265 Minn. 427, 431, 122 N.W.2d 31, 34 (1963).

It is clear from this record that the work duties of the decedent were not taxing, notwithstanding the unsupported determination of the compensation judge apparently to the contrary. A detailed breakdown of his activities during a typical workday is as follows: For 2 and 2 1/2 hours per day he inventoried parts, either by hand count or visual check; for 1 to 1 1/2 hours he unpacked 3- to 5-pound vinyl door panels and moved them about 10 feet to storage bins; for 1 1/2 hours he sat at his desk updating parts inventory records; for the balance of his time he had little else to do. The overtime work which he performed was generally of the same nature. The lifting of door panels, upon which the commission's findings seem to be based, involved the transfer of 3- to 5-pound door panels from cartons to storage racks during the first hour of his work on the date of his death, but in the last hour of his work preceding his death he was virtually at rest, simply engaged in casual conversation. ¹

We turn then to the critical medical evidence, which consists of the expert testimony of Dr. Thomas Russell, a cardiologist called by the employer, and of Dr. Frank Kapps, the physician who performed the autopsy upon decedent, called by respondent. Both medical experts agreed that two basic nonemployment factors were of sufficient causal significance to have contributed to his heart condition and demise: decedent's 'very high blood pressure' and his overweight. Dr. Russell included as an additional factor decedent's abnormally high blood cholesterol levels. Both agreed that decedent suffered a myocardial infarction at least 12 hours prior to the time of his death and more probably 24 hours prior to his death, thus, no later than 3 a.m. on January 25 and more probably sometime after 3 p.m. on January 248 a period in which...