Murray v. Mengel Co.
| Decision Date | 08 October 1942 |
| Docket Number | 2432. |
| Citation | 9 So.2d 818 |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
| Parties | MURRAY v. MENGEL CO. |
Appeal from District Court, Parish of East Baton Rouge; Chas. A Holcombe, Judge.
Breazeale Sachse & Wilson, of Baton Rouge, for appellant.
L.C Parker and Seale & Kelton, all of Baton Rouge, for appellee.
The defendant has appealed from a judgment in favor of plaintiff awarding him compensation for total and permanent disability in the sum of $18.15 per week for a period not exceeding 400 weeks, plus medical expenses in the sum of $110 and expert witness fees in the sum of $25 each for seven doctors who testified in the case. Counsel for plaintiff in their brief ask for an increase in the compensation to the maximum of $20 per week, however, no answer has been filed to the appeal and we cannot consider an amendment of the judgment in this respect.
There is little dispute as to the facts in the case. Plaintiff had been working for the defendant company for many years as a glue cooker, and at the time of the alleged accident and injury on July 3, 1941, he was about seventy-five years of age and had worked regularly on this job for several years. It is conceded that he had arteriosclerosis--hardening of the arteries--and high blood pressure, a condition so often found in advancing age. On the date mentioned, he suffered a stroke of apoplexy or cerebral hemorrhage, which caused him to become partially paralyzed on his right side and limbs, admittedly incapacitating him from performing his usual work. The principal question in the case involves both one of fact and one of law--of fact, as to whether or not plaintiff suffered an accident which was a contributing cause of the rupture of a cerebral artery, and a question of law, as to whether or not there was any accident and causal connection between the alleged injury and the present disability within the compensation law.
The glue room is located on top of the mill and is reached by ascending a perpendicular ladder extending from the ground floor to a wooden platform some 12 feet from the ground floor; thence following a kind of cat-walk for several feet to another ladder which extends some 8 feet further up to the glue room. In this room there are about seven steam kettles in which the glue is mixed and cooked. When these kettles are in operation the temperature in the room is very high, and the evidence shows that on the date of the alleged accident the room was unusually warm, so much so that the cooks had to take off the aprons that they were required to wear during the cooking process.
Some of the sacks of glue weigh over 200 pounds each while there are other sacks that weigh about 100 pounds each. These sacks of glue are pulled up into the glue room by means of a rope and pulley, and after the sacks reach the glue room, it was part of plaintiff's duty to unloose them from the rope and stack them up in the room. When the glue was to be cooked, plaintiff would put the sacks on scales some six or eight inches from the floor and after weighing the glue, he would scoop it out of the sacks and put it in the kettles for cooking, and at times he would lift a partly empty sack and pour the remaining contents into the kettle. He had a small hand truck on which to move the sacks around the room, but it was necessary for him to do considerable lifting in putting the sacks on and off the truck and the scales, and in dragging the sacks around the room. Sometimes plaintiff had a helper, particularly when he was mixing two kinds of glue, but he did most of the work himself.
Plaintiff came to work on the day of the alleged accident just before six o'clock and worked by himself at his job until around 9:30 when his helper came on. While the latter says that he came on at seven o'clock, yet we are inclined to believe that he is mistaken about the hour, as the plaintiff states that the helper came on about 9:30. In any event, the helper admits that plaintiff did all the handling of the sacks on the truck that day before he complained of feeling bad around ten o'clock. As plaintiff's account of what he did on that morning and what happened to him is very clear and practically undisputed, we will give a brief summary of his statement.
He worked for about three and a half hours that morning, handling the sacks of glue, putting them on the scales and emptying them into the kettles; the room was unusually hot; he had all he could do that morning, and around 9:30 when his helper came up, he told him that he was going down for a drink of water; he was very hot and descended the two ladders to the ground floor where the water fountain was located; just as he got to the foot of the ladder, he felt a roaring or whirring sound in his left ear, and he soon thereafter had a dead or numb feeling in his right arm and leg; he sat down and rubbed his arm and leg a few minutes and was able to climb up the ladders with some difficulty to the glue room; he told his helper that he felt sick, but continued on the job, doing only light work; around two o'clock he began to feel worse, and shortly thereafter attempted to fill out a report of the day's work but could not hold the pencil in his hand; after knocking off for the day, he managed to get down the ladders to the ground, but his right side gave way just as he reached the ground, and he had to be assisted to a car in which he was taken home in a semi-conscious condition....
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