Market Food Distributors, Inc. v. Levenson
| Decision Date | 07 May 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. QQ-150,QQ-150 |
| Parties | MARKET FOOD DISTRIBUTORS, INC. and Travelers Insurance Company, Appellants, v. Harold LEVENSON, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
H. George Kagan of Miller & Hodges, Miami, for appellants.
Albert E. Harum, Jr. of Harum & Harum, Coral Gables, for appellee.
Market Food Distributors, the employer/carrier, appeals the judge of industrial claims' finding that claimant Levenson injured his back "by accident arising out of . . . employment", when he bent over to pull out a 20-30 pound desk drawer. We reverse. The absence of any evidence that Levenson's employment contributed to the risk or aggravated his condition is the fatal flaw to his claim for compensation.
Levenson's claim is controlled by Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph v. McCook, 355 So.2d 1166, 1168 (Fla.1977), holding that when a claimant suffers from a preexisting condition and is injured in the course of employment, the injury is compensable only if the claimant can show it "arose out of" the employment. Amplifying upon this rule, Commissioner Wentworth, specially concurring in Orange County Board of County Commissioners v. Jordan, IRC Order 2-3785 (April 25, 1979), stated that in order for there to be a causal connection between the employment and the aggravation of a preexisting condition, the employment circumstances must have presented a risk different from those necessarily encountered in non-employment life.
Professor Larson's analysis of the problem relating to idiopathic cases is helpful. He suggests the problem can best be resolved by considering the legal cause of the injury, and then, its medical cause. 1B A. Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law, § 38.83 at 7-233 (1980). The inquiry focuses first upon what kind of exertion satisfies the legal test, i. e., whether the injury is one caused by the employment, and, if the exertion is legally sufficient to support compensation, next whether medically it caused the injury. Id. at 7-235. As to the legal test, if the employee brings to the job some personal element of risk unrelated to his employment (for example, a preexisting condition), before the injury can be found compensable, the employment must involve an exertion greater than that normally performed by the employee during his non-employment life. But, if the employee has no prior weakness or disease, any exertion connected with the employment and causally connected with the injury as a matter of medical fact is adequate to satisfy the legal test of causation. In both cases it is still necessary for a claimant to...
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Allen v. Industrial Com'n
...from City of Tuscaloosa v. Howard, 55 Ala.App. 701, 705-06, 318 So.2d 729, 732 (1975)). But see Market Foods Distributors, Inc. v. Levenson, 383 So.2d 726, 727 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1980) (subjective test: "the employment must involve an exertion greater than that normally performed by the emplo......
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...Oliver, 535 P.2d 290 (Okla.1975); Baker Mobiles of Florida v. O'Neil, 412 So.2d 34 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1982); Market Food Dist., Inc. v. Levenson, 383 So.2d 726 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1980). On WATSON, Justice. In this suit for workers' compensation death benefits, plaintiff, E. Jean Carruthers, con......
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Zundell v. Dade County School Bd.
...and ignored the "by accident" or unexpected-result element. This court followed the McCook rule in Market Food Distributors, Inc. v. Levenson, 383 So.2d 726 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980), in determining that the employment did not contribute to or aggravate the employee's preexisting idiopathic condi......