Ricker v. Village Management Corp.

• Citation: 97 S.E.2d 83,231 S.C. 47
• Decision Date: 12 March 1957
• Docket Number: No. 17270,17270
• Parties: R. H. RICKER, Respondent, v. VILLAGE MANAGEMENT CORPORATION and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Appellants.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of South Carolina

Page 83

97 S.E.2d 83

231 S.C. 47

R. H. RICKER, Respondent, v. VILLAGE MANAGEMENT CORPORATION and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Appellants.

No. 17270.

Supreme Court of South Carolina.

March 12, 1957.

Henderson, Salley & Cushman, Aiken, for appellants.

Williams & Busbee, Aiken, for respondent.

TAYLOR, Justice.

This is a Workmen's Compensation case in which the employer and its insurance carrier appeal from an Order of the Circuit Court affirming the findings of The South Carolina Industrial Commission that respondent is totally disabled by reason of having suffered an accident which arose out of and in the course of his employment by Village Management Corporation, on June 6, 1951; and as a result of respondent's accident and injury aggravated by a previous injury or disease which was dormant that respondent was then and has been since his injury totally and permanently disabled. The Circuit Judge while affirming the award remanded the case to The Industrial Commission to determine and give appellants credit for such amounts as had been paid respondent subsequent to his injury.

Appellants contend that the Circuit Judge erred in ruling: first, that the evidence and testimony were sufficient to sustain a finding that the claimant's condition resulted from an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment; second, that the evidence and testimony were sufficient to sustain a finding that the alleged accident resulted in a disabling injury or an injury aggravating a pre-existing condition or disease; third, that the evidence and testimony warranted a finding that the employer had timely notice, information, and knowledge of respondent's accident and injury and that appellants were not prejudiced by respondent's failure to notify his employer that he had or claimed to have had an accident, in writing, within thirty days thereof or a reasonable time thereafter.

Respondent, R. H. Ricker, a man fifty-six years of age, had been employed by the Village Management Corporation many years as a policeman and bus driver; but his duties on June 6, 1951, consisted solely of driving a forty-two passenger motor bus, picking up textile employees about the villages of Langley, Bath, Clear Water, Belvedere, and the Town of North Augusta in Aiken County, South Carolina, and across the State line into Augusta, Georgia, delivering them to their respective work shifts and at the same time picking up other employees who had completed their work shifts and returning them to their homes. Although plaintiff was not required to work continuously, he worked six days each week beginning at 6 a. m. and continuing until nearly midnight with rest periods between schedules and such employment was continuous until June 6, 1951, when respondent suffered a heart attack.

In June, 1951, construction on the Savannah River Hydrogen Bomb Plant in South Carolina was in full progress and many thousands of workers from the City of Augusta and surrounding areas were then employed in the construction of that plant, traveling to and from their work along the same route as that used by respondent. The bus, being a forty-two passenger motor bus, was awkward and cumbersome; and the route led into the City of Augusta, Georgia, on 14th Street, Southward to Green Street, where he made a left turn and proceeded Eastward on Green Street. The afternoon shift at the Savannah River Plant changed at 5 p. m., and at 5:30 p. m., the vehicular traffic was particularly congested. June 6, 1951, was a hot day. Respondent, a heavy man, had commenced his scheduled route at 5 p. m., with a load of mill employees, facing a hot sun. Respondent, in order to make the left turn successfully with the long bus, had not been using the left hand traffic lane immediately prior to making the turn. A short while before respondent was involved in a traffic accident, at this intersection, with a car which had attempted to pass on the left side while he was attempting to make such turn. Because of the unduly heavy traffic, he considered it safer thereafter to approach the intersection in the left traffic lane which required him to make a shorter turn than he had been making and involved considerable strain. While making this turn on June 6, he felt a 'hot, burning, drawing' intense pain such as he had never experienced before but thinking it was only gas pains, continued to drive the bus along the route and back home. Again, on the succeeding two days, June 7 and 8, he made his usual rounds and started again on June 9, the third day after feeling the sharp pain in his chest, when the pain returned with such intensity that it became necessary to stop his bus and have medical attention. He was immediately hospitalized until August 16, 1951.

Dr. C. M. Templeton, respondent's physician, who practices medicine in both Georgia and South Carolina, testified that he had known respondent all of his life and had never treated him for any ailment before June 9, 1951, with the exception of a stomach disturbance in 1946 which had nothing to do with his present trouble; that when called to attend respondent on June 9, he found that he was suffering excruciating pain, was cyanotic, and that he gave him a hypodermic injection and from the house where he had been placed when taken from the bus, he removed him to a hospital where he administered oxygen and medications; his diagnosis was a coronary infarction, proven by electrocardiogram, congestive heart failure, proven clinically. He further stated that in his professional opinion, respondent has been totally and permanently disabled since June 9, 1951. He further testified that a large percentage of such heart cases is associated with exertion, strain, or lifting; that there comes the onset and then the final blow: 'This tissue becomes soft and is ready to blow out just like a soft spot in a tire may be bruised and just blow out. I would say, in all probability (so far as we can determine medically, unless it had become a post mortem examination which would have been the only way to prove it definitely); but in my opinion--that was the onset of the trouble, and he began to have a recurrence of pain right on until this final episode. And I think probably his exertion to turn the bus, in oncoming traffic, certainly the tension and strain was enough to produce those things if set up was right.'

Dr. Harry T. Harper, Jr., a heart specialist, of Augusta, Georgia, testified that he examined plaintiff on October 27, 1952, approximately sixteen months after the accident; that he was of the opinion that the respondent had coronary sclerosis for sometime prior to his attack; that most attacks of coronary occlusion occur at rest, in bed, and without any precipitating factor in the way of physical exertion, making it...