Nix v. City of Houma

• Decision Date: 19 November 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-CA-0944,84-CA-0944
• Citation: 479 So.2d 546
• Parties: Eva Agnes NIX, et al. v. CITY OF HOUMA, et al. 479 So.2d 546
• Court: Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US

Page 546

479 So.2d 546

Eva Agnes NIX, et al. v. CITY OF HOUMA, et al.

No. 84-CA-0944.

479 So.2d 546

Court of Appeal of Louisiana First Circuit.

Nov. 19, 1985.

Joseph W. Greenwald, Shreveport, for plaintiff-appellee Eva Agnes Nix.

Donald Ensenat and Gerolyn P. Roussel, New Orleans, for defendant-appellant B.J. Hughes, Inc.

Before EDWARDS, LANIER and JOHN S. COVINGTON, JJ.

EDWARDS, Judge.

This is a suit for workmen's compensation benefits on behalf of decedent, Clifford William Nix, by his widow, Eva Agnes Nix, and their three children. Mrs. Nix, the principal plaintiff herein, originally sued in tort for wrongful death, naming as defendants the City of Houma; B.J. Hughes, Inc., a corporation which employed Mr. Nix; and City of Houma Electric, Water & Gas Utility Company. This action for workmen's compensation against B.J. Hughes, Inc., was severed and tried separately.

Mr. Nix was 64 years old with a preexisting diabetic condition but no history of heart disease. He was employed by B.J. Hughes, Inc., to prepare and present safety seminars.

On January 22, 1980, Mr. Nix gave a seminar in Houma, Louisiana. He had driven there the night before from his home in LaPlace, about 60 miles away, to avoid making the round trip in one day. He stayed overnight in Houma and had a full night's rest. Mr. Nix appeared ill when he arrived at the seminar in the morning. At lunchtime he declined to eat anything, in spite of his diabetic condition.

At about 3:45 p.m., upon conclusion of the seminar, Mr. Nix was driving his Hughes company car on the way back to his office in Metairie, Louisiana. A light rain was falling. Mr. Nix had driven for only a few minutes and was still within the limits of Houma when he suffered a fatal heart attack at the wheel. His car drifted to the side of the road and struck a utility pole. A police officer arrived shortly and tried to revive him with CPR. This failed, and Mr. Nix was pronounced dead on arrival at Terrebonne General Hospital.

Bench trial was held in January, 1984, with judgment for Mrs. Nix. She was awarded death benefits under workmen's compensation at the maximum rate, together with interest and costs. Motion for new trial was denied, whereupon B.J. Hughes, Inc., brought this suspensive appeal.

The only question before this court is whether Mr. Nix's heart attack was sufficiently work-related to entitle plaintiff to death benefits under the workmen's compensation statute. Defense counsel raises three assignments of error in her brief, but they present only different aspects of the same issue.

LSA-R.S. 23:1031 sets out the requirements for a successful claim:

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 persons hereinafter designated.

There is no doubt that Mr. Nix was "in the course of" his employment at the time of his death. It was firmly established at trial that he was in transit from the seminar to his office, and that his working day had not yet ended. This being true, the question then becomes whether the heart attack "arose out of" his employment. The jurisprudence provides a fairly comprehensive set of rules for determining the answer.

To begin with, the heart attack incident must result from some risk which affects the employee on his particular job and which would not affect him either in some other kind of work or if he didn't work at all. Stated another way, the heart attack must be "causally related" to the employment. The burden of proof is upon plaintiff to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the stress of the job was a reasonably probable cause or contributing factor to the heart attack. This stress must be greater than that which is normal for a person who does not work. Guidry v. Sline Industrial Painters, Inc., 418 So.2d 626 (La.1982); Prim v. City of Shreveport, 297 So.2d 421 (La.1974); Pennington v. Reading & Bates Construction Co., 432 So.2d 1173 (La.App. 3d Cir.1983).

Secondly, plaintiff must offer medical proof that his employment exertion was a contributing cause of his heart attack. Schneider v. Strahan, 449 So.2d 1338 (La.1984).

We note here that simply being at work or actively doing one's job is not proof of causality. Our Supreme Court has said, in this regard:

There is no presumption, however, that a vascular accident occurring on the job is caused by the employment. There must be a causal link between the employment, or the work, and the accident. And of course, the law imposes upon the plaintiff in compensation cases, as it does in other civil cases, the burden of proving that causal link by a preponderance of the evidence.... Anything less and it can hardly be said that the accident arose out of the employment or that the employment in any measure contributed to the accident. (citations omitted)

Guidry v. Sline Industrial Painters, Inc., 418 So.2d 626 (La.1982) at page 633.

In his stated reasons for judgment awarding benefits to plaintiff, the trial judge said:

The facts in the instant case lend the following factors which could be pointed to as job related stressful circumstances which exceed ordinary nonemployment circumstances. Mr. Nix was almost sixty-five years of age, had a preexisting diabetic condition, but no record of any preexisting heart condition. On the day of his accident he was at...