Mayeux v. Commercial Union Ins. Companies
| Decision Date | 02 July 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-684,85-684 |
| Citation | 492 So.2d 188 |
| Parties | Nick F. MAYEUX, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. COMMERCIAL UNION INSURANCE COMPANIES, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
Percy, Smith, Wilson, Foote, Walker & Honeycutt, Lon P. Wilson, Alexandria, for defendant-appellant.
Darrel D. Ryland, Marksville, for plaintiff-appellee.
Before STOKER and YELVERTON, JJ., and BERTRAND *, J. Pro Tem.
The worker's compensation insurer appeals from a judgment awarding worker's compensation benefits for total and permanent disability. This disability arose after the employee experienced pain while at work as well as at home on January 24, 1983 which resulted in his undergoing double bypass surgery twelve (12) days later.
On appeal, defendant raises the following issues:
(1) Whether the Trial Court erred in concluding that the plaintiff had proven by a preponderance of the evidence that there was a connection between his heart attack or attack of chest pain and employment activity; that is that the attack arose out of and in the course of his employment.
(2) Whether the Trial Court erred in concluding that the plaintiff was totally and permanently disabled.
In the instant case we face the issue of the causal links between the angina and the employment and between the angina and the disability.
The plaintiff, Nick Mayeux, is the owner of Red River Farm Supply, Inc. For three (3) or four (4) years prior to January of 1983 he occasionally experienced chest discomfort which would subside after a few minutes of rest. Between the hours of 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. on January 24, 1983 the plaintiff experienced a typical episode of chest discomfort while unloading a truck at work. As always, Mr. Mayeux rested for a few minutes and then returned to work. He continued to work until about noon when he and his wife drove to Krotz Springs to aid in the investigation of a hunting accident in which Mr. Mayeux had been previously involved. He returned to work around 4:00 or 4:30 p.m. and helped his sons close up the business, which involved the lifting of fertilizer tanks to attach to either trucks or tractors before placement in the warehouse as well as the closing of the heavy metal doors to the business. Mr. Mayeux participated in both activities without discomfort. Around 6:00 p.m., after he had been home about an hour, Mr. Mayeux felt a chest pain that was different from any pain that he had experienced before, both in intensity and duration. This pain caused him to go to the emergency room of the Marksville General Hospital where he was seen by Dr. Fernando Garcia who diagnosed the pain as angina pectoris. He was later transferred to St. Francis Cabrini Hospital in Alexandria under the care of Dr. Brian Cole, a cardiologist, who diagnosed plaintiff as having coronary artery disease. Subsequently bypass surgery was performed by Dr. J.D. Knoepp.
Did Nick Mayeux's angina attack on the evening of January 24, 1983 arise out of and in the course of his employment?
Louisiana's Worker's Compensation Act, La.R.S. 23:1021 et seq., sets forth the requirements for a successful claim for worker's compensation as follows:
"If an employee ... receives personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, his employer shall pay compensation in the amounts, on the conditions, and to the person or persons hereinafter designated ..."
It is well established that a myocardial infarction, is an "injury by accident" within the contemplation of the Worker's Compensation Act. Barnes v. City of New Orleans, 322 So.2d 821 (La.App. 4th Cir.1975), writ denied, 325 So.2d 584 (La.1976); Guidry v. Sline Industrial Painters, Inc., 418 So.2d 626 (La.1982); Schneider v. Strahan, 422 So.2d 1377 (La.App. 1st Cir.1982), affirmed 449 So.2d 1338 (La.1984). An angina attack has been held to be a compensable injury by accident although the attack was precipitated by the gradual thickening of the vessel walls. Bertrand v. Coal Operators Casualty Co., 253 La. 1115, 221 So.2d 816 (1969); Adams v. New Orleans Public Service, Inc., 418 So.2d 485 (La.1981).
Angina was concisely explained in Adams, supra.
The requirement that the accident "arise out of the employment" contemplates that the accident resulted from some risk to which the employee was subjected in the course of his employment and to which he would not have been subjected had he not been so employed. That risk must be one greater than that occasioned by a person not engaged in the employment. Guidry, supra. The Supreme Court in Guidry set forth the following analysis for the "arising out of" issue in heart attack cases:
"For the heart accident to arise out of or be connected with the employment, the exertion, stress, or strain, acting upon the pre-existing disease, must be of a degree greater than that generated in everyday non-employment life (e.g. as compared to the more or less sedentary life of the average non-worker.)" 418 So.2d 626, 633.
Our inquiry is therefore whether plaintiff has carried his burden of proving that the physical or emotional stress which Nick Mayeux suffered from was a risk which he encountered in the course of his employment at Red River Farm Supply, Inc., and that this risk aggravated his heart condition and ultimately caused his angina attack on the evening of January 24, 1983 and the subsequent bypass surgery.
In the instant case, none of the medical experts, who testified by deposition, could definitively link the angina attack to plaintiff's employment. Dr. Brian Cole was the only one of plaintiff's treating physicians to venture an opinion as to the specific cause of the attack. Dr. Cole stated that, upon admission to St. Francis Cabrini Hospital, plaintiff told him that initially the chest pain became a real problem when he was in the woods. Plaintiff then related an incident during that time in which the truck he was in became stuck in the mud. In trying to extricate the vehicle, the winch used to pull it out broke and plaintiff had to push the truck out himself. Plaintiff also told Dr. Cole how much the hunting accident and impending lawsuit had upset him. Based on this history Dr. Cole concluded that the increased physical exertion of pushing the truck out of the mud combined with the mentally stressful and mentally upsetting set of circumstances connected with the hunting accident caused enough of a change in plaintiff's pattern of pain to send him to the hospital on the night of January 24, 1983.
Dr. Garcia testified that plaintiff's coronary problem was a long-standing condition that gradually reached the point that there was simply not enough blood getting to the heart muscle. Dr. Garcia stated he was unable to give an opinion that this angina attack was related to stress or physical exertion. Both Dr. Cole and Dr. Garcia stated that if angina pains were caused by physical stress that they would occur during or right after the exertion. Dr. J.D. Knoepp, plaintiff's surgeon stated that it was impossible to say what was the most likely cause of the severe angina attack and that he was unable to say it was related to plaintiff's employment.
Our review of the record reveals that plaintiff has not shown that job-related physical stress was a precipitating cause of his angina attack. Furthermore, we find that plaintiff suffered no job-related mental stress greater than that involved in every day, non-employment life.
Plaintiff testified that in operating his own business he came under a great deal of pressure. However, the record is otherwise inconclusive in establishing any substantial mental pressures greater than other pressures that are involved in every day, non-employment life. In plaintiff's particular case the testimony of Dr. Cole is very persuasive in establishing that the mental stress related to the hunting accident and pending lawsuit, both of which were not job related, were the precipitating cause of the angina attack.
An accident occurs "in the course of employment" when it happens during the time of employment and at a place contemplated by the employment. Guidry v. Sline Industrial Painters, Inc., supra; Lisonbee v. Chicago Mill and Lumber Company, 278 So.2d 5 (La.1973).
As was mentioned earlier, plaintiff first exhibited angina pains on the morning of January 24, 1983 but it was not until that evening that the pain became severe enough to send him to the hospital.
Our jurisprudence has recognized that compensation may be awarded when the death or disability occurs off the job after an on-the-job incident if there is medical correlation between job duties, the incident, and the resulting death or disability. Schneider v. Strahan, 449 So.2d 1338 (La.1984); Walker v. Austin Power Company, 467 So.2d 1246 (La.App. 2d Cir.1985), writs denied, 469 So.2d 987 (1985); Luneau v. Hanover Ins. Co., 478 So.2d 752 (La.App. 3d Cir.1985).
Two recent decisions of our circuit are pertinent to our inquiry at this point. The decisions in King v. Wilson Brothers Drilling, Co., 441 So.2d 68 (La.App. 3d Cir.1983) writ denied, 443 So.2d 598 (La.1983) and Luneau v. Hanover Ins. Co., supra were both based on an alleged death or disability occurring off the job after an on-the-job incident.
In King v. Wilson, ...
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