Reedy v. Mid-State Baptist Hosp., MID-STATE
Decision Date | 04 May 1962 |
Docket Number | MID-STATE |
Citation | 210 Tenn. 398,14 McCanless 398,359 S.W.2d 822 |
Parties | , 210 Tenn. 398 Elizabeth REEDY v.BAPTIST HOSPITAL. |
Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Walker Casey, Nashville, for petitioner.
Joseph G. Cummings, Davis, Boult, Hunt & Cummings, Nashville, for defendant.
Petitioner sued defendant for compensation for total and permanent disability she alleged had resulted from a back injury she had suffered August 8, 1959, while she was employed by defendant as a 'scrub nurse.' She claimed that as she was standing on a short foot stool, helping a surgeon lift a patient from an operating table to a stretcher, the 'stool turned and she was thrown and her back severely twisted,' causing the disability sued for.
Upon the trial, after hearing the testimony and considering it with the allegations of the petition, the Trial Judge found that petitioner had been fully compensated for such temporary disability as she had suffered from this injury of August 8, 1959, but had sustained no permanent disability from it, and he dismissed her petition.
Petitioner appealed in error and has assigned a number of errors insisting, among other things, that there is no evidence to support the findings of the Trial Judge, that the evidence preponderates against such findings and in favor of petitioner's claim, and that the Court should have sustained her claim at least to the extent of 30% permanent partial disability to the body as a whole, and awarded her compensation therefor.
Petitioner had a prior injury to her back which she received in an automobile accident in September 1958. On September 16, 1958, she had been operated on for that injury by Dr. Charles M. Hamilton. It was 'a ruptured lumbosacral disc which was excised' by Dr. Hamilton. Testifying as her witness, he estimated that from that prior injury she retained a permanent partial disability of 25 to 30% to the body as a whole.
Later, she had trouble with her back discribed by her doctor as 'recurrent episodes of sciatica, from her ruptured disc condition.' One of these episodes occurred in August 1959, which was the injury complained of. Following this, she was off from work for 5 or 6 weeks, and was paid compensation and furnished hospitalization and medical expenses therefor; and she acknowledged such payment by signing a settlement agreement in satisfaction of her claim.
The record shows she was off from work on sick leave on a number of occasions from September 1958, until February 1960, when she claims to have suffered another injury to her back as she picked up some sheets on a shelf. Following this episode, she was off only two or three days, but made no claim for any compensation or expenses on account of it. In March 1960, her employment by defendant was terminated. At the time of the trial she was employed by a doctor at approximately the same salary she had received from defendant.
Petitioner contends that an injured employee is entitled to be paid for the condition he is in after his last injury; that though petitioner's disability resulted from her prior injury, it is, nevertheless, compensable if it was contributed to or aggravated by her later injuries for which she sued. Procter & Gamble Defense Corp. v. West, 203 Tenn. 138, 142, 310 S.W.2d 175.
The trouble with this contention is that it is unsupported by the proof and contrary to the findings of the Trial Judge. Petitioner's witness Dr. Hamilton said that her pre-existing disability was not aggravated by the later episodes, the flare-up of sciatica in August, for which he saw her in October 1959, and the one in February 1960. He said:
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In re Estate of Haskins, E2006-00209-COA-R3-CV.
... ... 262, 77 S.W.2d 449, 450 (Tenn.1935); Reedy v. Mid-State Baptist Hosp., 210 ... 224 S.W.3d 683 ... ...
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