Moses v. R. H. Wright & Son, Inc.
| Decision Date | 17 October 1956 |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
| Parties | Millard M. MOSES, Petitioner, v. R. H. WRIGHT & SON, Inc., Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, and Florida Industrial Commission, Respondents. |
R. B. Huffaker, Bartow, for petitioner.
Macfarlance, Ferguson, Allison & Kelly, Hugh C. Macfarlane, Tampa, and Rodney Durrance, Tallahassee, for respondents.
By petition for certiorari we are requested to review an order of the Florida Industrial Commission, affirming a workmen's compensation award made by a Deputy Commissioner, in favor of petitioner Moses who was dissatisfied with the award. A motion to dismiss the petition for insufficiency has been filed by the respondents.
We are called upon to determine whether there was competent substantial evidence to support the finding of the Deputy Commissioner with reference to the extent of petitioner's disability. On respondents' motion we must decide whether the petition for the writ sufficiently meets the requirements of our rule to merit consideration.
On June 3, 1955, the petitioner, Moses, suffered an electrical shock while holding onto a dragline when the boom came in contact with a high tension wire charged with electricity. Respondent, R. H. Wright & Son, Inc., was his employer. The current passed through the dragline, resulting in a burn of petitioner's right hand. The current then passed through his body making its exit through his left foot. This produced a burn and resulting ulcer on the foot. The only visible physical injuries were those above mentioned. However, a neurological and psychiatric examination revealed that, because of illiteracy and a peculiar spiritual philosophy, petitioner Moses, immediately subsequent to the accident and at the time of the hearing in December, 1955, labored under a disabling mental condition or psychosis.
It appeared to be petitioner's notion that the electrical shock was a form of supernatural warning or punishment. He interpreted it as an act of God indicating the displeasure of the Lord. He concluded that by this accident God had delivered him into the hands of the devil. Much could be written with reference to the nature of the man's mental condition. We mention in passing that it was not a neurosis. The neurological examination revealed no injury to the nervous system. The disabling condition, in the viewpoint of the medical expert who testified, was mental and in the form of a strange psychosis briefly mentioned above.
We are relieved of the necessity of passing on the question of the causal relationship between the accident and the ultimate injury suffered. This is so because the record reveals that the parties have stipulated that 'the claimant suffered an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment when he received an electrical shock'. Our sole problem on the merits of the case is to determine whether the Deputy Commissioner had competent substantial evidence to support his finding which was that the petition Moses was entitled to compensation on the basis of a ten percent permanent partial disability.
The petitioner contends that there was no competent substantial evidence to support this conclusion. On the contrary, he asserts that the only competent substantial evidence available to the Deputy Commissioner showed that at the time of the hearing he was totally disabled albeit not permanently.
The respondents contend for the application of the so-called competent substantial evidence rule and take the position that there was such evidence to support the Deputy Commissioner's conclusion. On the basis of the expert of the expert medical testimony we are confronted with a peculiar dilemma. In a written report on his examination of petitioner the neurologist stated that at the time of his examination, on October 4, 1955, the man was 'totally disabled by psychological consequences of an accident which occurred on or about June 3, 1955'. The doctor then was of the view that the man would not improve until he experienced some sort of spiritual rebirth. He advised that in this petitioner's mind all decisions in the ultimate are made by God and that any adjudication that he was permanently disabled or totally disabled for any particular period of time would definitely convince the man that God Himself had so determined the issue. This in turn would convince him that God was punishing him pro tanto by the adjudication. Although admitting that the man was totally disabled in the sense that he couldn't work, the doctor suggested 'that this man's best interests would be served by disposition of the case on the basis of ten percent permanent partial disability'. The idea back of this suggestion was that even though totally disabled, if the man were advised that he was only ten percent disabled, he would feel that God had forsaken him only ten percent of the way and to that extent was contributing to his recovery and rehabilitation.
We cannot dispose of this case with the conclusion that this man is laboring under a so-called 'compensation neurosis.' Although the neurologist testified that settlement of this claim would in the ultimate contribute to recovery, the man's condition did not result peculiarly from the anxiety over the litigation itself. His peculiar psychosis was related to his strange spiritual concepts. To him settlement of the litigation in a satisfactory fashion merely means an indication that God had overthrown the devil and had again aligned Himself on the side of the petitioner. See Larson's Workmen's Compensation Law, Sec. 42.24; Michigan Law Review, Vol. 53, p. 898.
Very obviously we are not endowed with the divine capacity to bring relief to the petitioner's tortured mind. On the basis of this record, the disabling mental condition is very real. The doctor, upon whose testimony we are compelled to rely, clearly eliminated any aspect of fraud or purposeful malingering. Fortunately, medical science has developed to the point where competent men, such as the witness in this case, can detect and measure bona fide mental illnesses and distinguish them from those conceived in...
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Price v. Daugherty
... ... Price had experienced several serious gynecological surgeries, had a son with a drug problem, had a brother who had recently died after suffering ... term finds acceptance in the following workers' compensation cases: Moses v. R.H. Wright & Son, Inc. (Fla.1956), 90 So.2d 330; Allis Chalmers Co ... ...
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Anderson v. Anderson
...or without further hearing as the circumstances require. Hardy v. City of Tarpon Springs, Fla. [1955], 81 So.2d 503; Moses v. R.H. Wright, et al., Fla. [1956], 90 So.2d 330; Andrews v. C.B.S. Division [,Maule Industries (Fla.1960), 118 So.2d 206], supra. The reviewing court may conclude tha......
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City of Holmes Beach v. Grace
...injury, this Court has upheld compensation awards even though there was little or no evidence of physical injury. Moses v. R.H. Wright & Son, Inc., 90 So.2d 330 (Fla.1956); Lyng v. Rao, 72 So.2d 53 (Fla.1954). Similarly, we also upheld a compensation award where a claimant suffered an anxie......
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Liberty Correctional Institute v. Yon, 94-3513
...denied, 111 So.2d 40 (Fla.1959), were also noted in Grace and included claimants who were struck by lightning, Moses v. R.H. Wright & Son, Inc., 90 So.2d 330 (Fla.1956); Lyng v. Rao, 72 So.2d 53 (Fla.1954), and a claimant who was blown into the air by an accidental discharge of dynamite, Oo......