McCowan v. City of Riverside

• Decision Date: 10 January 1995
• Docket Number: No. WD,WD
• Citation: 890 S.W.2d 725
• Parties: Claude McCOWAN, Deceased, Mary Ann McCowan, Respondent, v. CITY OF RIVERSIDE, Missouri, Appellant. 49189.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 725

890 S.W.2d 725

Claude McCOWAN, Deceased, Mary Ann McCowan, Respondent, v. CITY OF RIVERSIDE, Missouri, Appellant.

No. WD 49189.

Missouri Court of Appeals Western District.

Jan. 10, 1995.

Michael L. Wilson, Kansas City, for appellant.

David Lee Wells, North Kansas City, for respondents.

Before HANNA, P.J., and BRECKENRIDGE and SMART, JJ.

HANNA, Presiding Judge.

Employer, the city of Riverside, appeals the decision of the Labor & Industrial Relations Commission (Commission) awarding death benefits to the deceased employee's widow. The sole issue before the ALJ, the Commission and this court is whether there was a causal connection between Mr McCowan's work activity and his sudden cardiac death.

Mr. McCowan went to work for the city of Riverside, Missouri, in November 1987, as a city laborer, maintenance man and snowplow operator. On December 14, 1987, a bad snowstorm covered Riverside and, for two days, produced a great deal of blowing and drifting snow. On December 15, Mr. McCowan returned to work to plow snow and, at approximately 9:22 a.m., he made a radio call to the Riverside dispatcher and said, "I am crossways on 50th Street." He was told that the city had a medical emergency and all of the police officers were busy and that as soon as one was free the dispatcher would send help.

Approximately thirty minutes after the radio call, police officers arrived to provide assistance. When they arrived, the snowplow was on fire and they found Mr. McCowan dead inside the cab ¹. The city's snowplow, which is mounted on a dump truck, was found on a hill sideways across the road. The plow was facing north and the salt spreader had come to rest on the south side of the road. The rear of the snowplow had slid off of the road and into the south bank. The rear tires of the vehicle had ground down to the dirt and had thrown the dirt back onto the mud flaps. The issue at the hearing was whether the stress of the snowplow accident was causally related to his subsequent death.

The testimony of two doctors, Drs. Jay Dix and James Davia, was presented at the hearing before the ALJ by deposition. Neither had seen or treated the deceased before his death, and both testified regarding causation. Dr. Dix, who testified on behalf of the claimant, specializes in forensic pathology and is a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine. He is the medical examiner for Boone and Callaway Counties. Dr. Davia, who testified for the employer, practices internal medicine with a sub-speciality in cardiovascular disease. Without repeating the extensive and impressive medical Curriculum Vitae of the two physicians, it is sufficient to observe that they both had extensive backgrounds in teaching, consultation, writing and professional experience.

In addition to the depositions of the two physicians concerning the causal connection between Mr. McCowan's work activities and his death, there were autopsy findings, medical records of a treating physician, a post-mortem examination by Dr. Bridgens, and a toxicology lab report by chemist Charles Johnson of the University of Missouri. The only live testimony presented was that of the deceased's brother-in-law, who took photographs at the scene and described the scene, the truck and tire marks, the deceased's wife, and police officer James Baughman of the Riverside Police Department. Generally, they testified as to facts other than the causal connection.

With regard to causation, Dr. Dix testified that the snowplow sliding off the road into the ditch created stress which, to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, was a contributing factor to his death. While acknowledging that people with bad hearts can have heart attacks at any time in a stressful or non-stressful situation, Dr. Dix testified that this amount of stress could contribute to the death of a person who had a heart in such condition as Mr. McCowan's.

Dr. Davia's interpretation of Mr. McCowan's pre-employment electrocardiogram, medical history and autopsy revealed that Mr. McCowan had four distinct conditions that predisposed him to sudden cardiac death. Specifically, the pre-employment electrocardiogram revealed the presence of "Q-Waves" and a prolonged "Q-T interval," both of which are indicators of previous myocardial infarctions. Additionally, Dr. Davia identified a significantly enlarged heart muscle (heart hypertrophy) and severe atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries. He further noted that the autopsies performed by Drs. Bridgens and Dix both revealed scars on Mr. McCowan's heart indicative of old myocardial infarctions, which is the death of...