Longobardi v. Sargent & Co.

• Decision Date: 01 March 1924
• Parties: LONGOBARDI v. SARGENT & CO.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

124 A. 13

100 Conn. 383

LONGOBARDI v. SARGENT & CO.

Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

March 1, 1924

Appeal from Superior Court, New Haven County; Allyn L. Brown, Judge.

Proceedings for compensation, under the Workmen's Compensation Act before the compensation commissioner, by Achille Longobardi against Sargent & Co. From a judgment of the superior court dismissing an appeal from the order of the commissioner refusing to make an award, plaintiff appeals. No error.

The claimant, plaintiff, on January 15, 1923, was in the employ of the respondent, defendant, and had been for a long time prior thereto. Both of the parties were subject to the provisions of the Compensation Act (Pub. Acts, 1913, c. 138 as amended). The plaintiff had been employed by defendant for about 12 years before the date last mentioned, continuously except for an absence of 5 months in Italy in 1921 or 1922 and 1 or 2 months in 1918 or 1919, when he worked in a shop in New Haven, engaged in the manufacture of knives. In March 1917, plaintiff had trouble with his heart, with broken compensation. He presented a physician's certificate to the defendant, and was given by it light work at sweeping. Before this change of work plaintiff was engaged in blacksmithing work carried on in a hot place, which was not heavy work for that sort of labor. While doing this work the trouble with the heart apparently started. The hammer used by the plaintiff in the work weighed only about one-half to three-quarters of a pound, and many of the operations were performed by machinery. The iron was, however, heated to about 500 or 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

After the change of work in March, 1917, the plaintiff continued for some months the operations incident to sweeping, and working for a while assembling parts, work which was not heavy. The work of sweeping as conducted by the plaintiff was not heavy work, but was not adapted to one with heart trouble. About March, 1919, the plaintiff on account of the condition of his heart was transferred from the work of sweeping to work upon a drilling machine. He ceased work on the 15th day of January, 1923, and has since then done no work. At that time he was working upon a drilling machine, which work necessitated only very moderate muscular action, but called for walking from one drill to another.

At that time the claimant was suffering with heart disease, as follows, to wit, an aortic regurgitation, and broken compensation, with double mitral lesion, and aneurism of the organ, which was caused by syphilis. He has been at all times since January 15, 1923, incapacitated from all labor, and is in fact suffering from a serious heart trouble, and the length of his future incapacity cannot now be determined. At no time was there any injury in the sense of a definite occurrence which can be located in point of time and place.

Had the operations incident to the work of the plaintiff had any effect upon his condition, it could only have been a gradual effect, imperceptible at any particular time, and it was not shown that any work performed by the plaintiff after the last day of June, 1919, had in point of fact any appreciable effect upon the course of the disease. It was not established that any of the work done by the claimant at any time in fact affected the condition of the heart or the subsequent capacity of the claimant to work. The progress of the heart disease since 1917 has been more gradual than the average case, and the evidence did not establish that the plaintiff has been since January 15, 1923, or is now, in any worse condition than if he had done no work.

The plaintiff claimed before the commissioner: First, that the work before March, 1917, under conditions involving a high degree of heat, caused the subsequent incapacity. This claim was overruled. Second, that the gradual effects of such work performed before March, 1917, would be compensable, even in the absence of an occurrence attributable to a definite time and place. This claim was overruled. Third, that the work of sweeping was a cause of incapacity. This claim was overruled. Fourth, that the work in connection with the drilling machine was a cause of incapacity. This claim was overruled.

After the finding and filing of the award of the commissioner, the plaintiff made a motion to correct numerous paragraphs therein, which was denied. The commissioner's memorandum of decision is made part of his finding.

In the superior court plaintiff assigned error on the part of the commissioner in two reasons of appeal: (1) That the conclusions in the finding were legally inconsistent with the subordinate facts found; (2) in refusing to correct the finding.

The superior court sustained the action of the commissioner, and dismissed the appeal.

Further facts appear in the opinion.

Joseph V. Esposito and William J. McKenna, both of New Haven, for the appellant.

J. Dwight Dana, of New Haven, for appellee.

KEELER, J. (after stating the facts as above).

In the appeal to this court the reasons of appeal are stated in two groups, the first reason brings together nine requests to correct the finding of the commissioner, the second reason expands the reason of appeal first in the statement of facts, and above quoted as urged before the superior court, into eleven reasons, most of them in no way suggested by the original and comprehensive reason of appeal.

The corrections of the finding requested in some cases would merely go to amplify and color the findings actually made by the Commissioner, and others in effect ask for a complete reversal of the facts found. The request to find that the plaintiff was suffering from an aneurism of the " aorta" instead of the " organ" as stated, should have been granted. The insistence of the commissioner in standing by the original notes simply perpetuated what was undoubtedly a stenographer's error, but the change, if made, could not affect the conclusion of the commissioner nor of the superior court in reviewing it. The requested corrections all go upon the insistence of the plaintiff upon two conclusions which he claims should be drawn from the evidence, one that the work of blacksmithing caused the lesion of plaintiff's heart when it was first received, and, second, that there was such an aggravation of an existing constitutional trouble caused by the different sorts of work in which the plaintiff was afterward engaged, that is, sweeping and drilling, as to entitle plaintiff to compensation. The commissioner, and the superior court in sustaining the latter, found that upon the evidence the disability which first manifested itself while the plaintiff was engaged in blacksmithing contributed in no way to change the natural cause of the malady, and that, so far as the very high degree of temperature surrounding the work was concerned, or any of the peculiarities in the work subsequently performed, " it was not established that any of the work done by the plaintiff at any time in fact affected the condition of the heart or the subsequent capacity of the claimant to work." This is the eighteenth paragraph of the commissioner's finding, and is not challenged in the reasons of appeal based on the refusal of the commissioner and of the trial court to correct the same. This finding is fully sustained by the evidence, and is conclusive of itself to sustain the award of the commissioner, which also is fortified by his other...