Rayfield v. City of New Orleans
| Decision Date | 05 May 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 12167,12167 |
| Citation | 398 So.2d 1243 |
| Parties | Gladys RAYFIELD, in Behalf of Veronica Ann Rayfield, Lisa Marie Rayfield and Sidney Rayfield, III, and Carretha Stokes Rayfield, Individually, and in Behalf of Cassandre Marie Rayfield, Sidney Rayfield, III, Julie Marie Rayfield and Nathaniel Reginald Rayfield v. CITY OF NEW ORLEANS, National Building Service and Maintenance, Inc., and CNA Insurance Company. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Louisiana — District of US |
Seelig, Cosse & Frischhertz, Lloyd N. Frischhertz, New Orleans, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Salvador Anzelmo, City Atty., Delbert G. Talley, Asst. City Atty., New Orleans, for the City of New Orleans, defendants-appellees.
Before BOUTALL, CHEHARDY and STOULIG, JJ.
Gladys Rayfield, in behalf of Veronica Ann Rayfield, Lisa Marie Rayfield and Sidney Rayfield, III, and Carretha Stokes Rayfield, individually, and in behalf of Cassandre Marie Rayfield, Sidney Rayfield, III, Julie Marie Rayfield and Nathaniel Reginald Rayfield, appeals a district court judgment in favor of defendant City of New Orleans dismissing the plaintiff's suit as to that defendant.
In giving his reasons for judgment, the trial court judge stated:
"Having carefully reviewed and considered the evidence adduced on the trial of this matter, and especially the testimony of the physicians, the Court is of the opinion that the death of the decedent was not the result of an 'accident' as defined by the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Statute and more particularly La.R.S. 23:1021(1)."
We agree and affirm.
At a trial on the merits of the case, the widow of the decedent, Sidney Rayfield, Jr., testified that on the day of his death, September 1, 1976, he left for work as usual at approximately 8 a. m. to go to his job at City Hall, where he was employed in the Department of Collections, and nothing eventful occurred prior to his leaving. She stated he returned from this job at around 5:30 that evening, at which time he complained of having leg pains and chest pains, ate dinner and then left for his second job with a janitorial service.
Mrs. Rayfield said the next time she saw her husband was at approximately 10:45 that evening when he returned complaining of chest pains. About 30 minutes later the decedent left for the hospital and she later learned he had died on the way there.
It was established from the testimony of John McLemore, a coworker of the decedent also employed by the City, that Rayfield and he worked together on the afternoon of the day of his death removing parking meter housings which were in the way of construction work being done on North Rampart Street. He stated that the housings being removed by Rayfield, himself and another worker weighed approximately 30 or 35 pounds apiece. He said Rayfield never complained of having chest pains either on the day of his death or on any other occasion, but the decedent had said he had a problem with his leg.
McLemore also said that on the date in question the weather was hot and humid, and the men took one break sometime between the hours of 1:30 and 3:30 p. m before they returned to the shop. He stated that on that morning he and Rayfield did not work together because they were collecting routes individually. McLemore also said he had been working with the decedent since approximately July of 1973 and Rayfield had come to the job some six months prior to that date.
Dr. John Ernst, an expert in the field of internal medicine and cardiology, after reviewing the coroner's report, autopsy protocol, laboratory report and death certificate of Mr. Rayfield, as well as his medical report from Civil Service and a chart from the Veterans Administration Hospital, testified the decedent had severe coronary artery disease, had had a previous myocardial infarction, and had an acute myocardial infarction on the night of his death, which he stated occurs, in most cases, as here, when the man's blood supply does not meet his demand for that particular time.
Dr. Ernst stated that because the patient complained of chest pain several hours prior to his death it would suggest something had occurred probably earlier in the day because of this supply and demand problem. Regarding Rayfield's work activity, the physician stated that the history indicated to him the decedent had had a very heavy day, but he noted he did not know how he tolerated previously heavy days. He also said the work of unscrewing caps to parking meters and activities of cleaning and lifting would be of enormous stress to a man who had serious coronary artery disease.
Dr. Ernst testified that recent heavy physical jobs aggravated the decedent's coronary artery disease and also said regarding the fact that he had chest pains on arriving home, he could not say definitely whether at that point an occlusion process had begun; however, he said it "probably" began at that time because of the autopsy report demonstrating he had occlusion hemorrhagic plaque and the beginning of damage at an "indeterminate" time. He also said the thrombus occurring in Rayfield's case can form whether a person is working or not if the occlusion is severe enough; however, Dr. Ernst further testified he could say with medical certainty the arterio sclerosis was aggravated by the work the decedent did to the extent that the work was the cause.
Dr. R. W. Dhurandhar, Chief of Cardiology and Medicine at Touro Infirmary, whose specialty is cardio vascular disease, testified that in the present case he could not estimate when the decedent's thrombosis formed. When asked if the activity the decedent had performed on the day of his death was the cause of what happened to him, he said this was a difficult question to answer "simply because the man was doing it every day." He added a man who has severe coronary artery disease is always at the risk of sudden death.
Dr. Dhurandhar said sudden death through ventricular fibrillation can be caused by severe coronary artery disease, as in the decedent's case and that hemorrhagic plaque began to grow, probably, due to plaque formation after sclerosis. He explained that this plaque, which had been in his vessels for some time, began to hemorrhage due to tiny vessels rupturing but this would not necessarily occur at work but could happen any time.
Dr. Dhurandhar also said he could not say whether the hemorrhagic plaque and thrombus preceded death by a very short time, but for the hemorrhage to become significant it must have happened just before or around the time Rayfield died. He added that the vessel was already severely narrowed and that it is possible some bleeding additionally produced further narrowing and blocked it off. He added, however, if it had blocked off while working he would have died, probably, immediately at work.
Dr. Dhurandhar testified there was nothing in the documents he reviewed to lead him to believe the decedent's work precipitated this occlusion, and he added there is no strict correlation between physical exertion and heart attacks as there is physical exertion and angina pectoris. In regard to the correlation between Rayfield's work and his death, the physician stated that if in his job, on the day he died, he had had more unusual exertion or if he had been under severe mental stress and there were causes for him to get highly upset, then he had aggravation of his condition due to work. He also said, however, if he was doing the same thing he was doing for five years then it was not possible to say his particular work did it. Furthermore, a slide examination showed no myocardial infarction or necrosis of heart tissue which would have been the evidence that indicated an attack occurred prior to the ventricular fibrillation.
The jurisprudence surrounding the issues in a case of this type was analyzed very well in Campbell v. Kansas City Southern Railroad Co., 297 So.2d 798 (La.App. 4th Cir. 1974), at 799-800:
"Plaintiffs must prove the existence of the causal connection between death resulting from heart failure and decedent's employment activities. Our courts have frequently reviewed claims under the Workmen's Compensation Act for death benefits resulting from heart attacks. The law relative thereto is contained in Prater v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, 182 So.2d 805, 807 (La.App. 3rd Cir. 1966), where it is stated:
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