Riley v. Oxford Paper Co.

• Court: Maine Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Before MERRILL; WEBBER; TIRRELL
• Citation: Riley v. Oxford Paper Co., 103 A.2d 111, 149 Me. 418 (Me. 1954)
• Decision Date: 19 January 1954
• Parties: RILEY v. OXFORD PAPER CO. et al.

Page 111

103 A.2d 111

149 Me. 418

RILEY v. OXFORD PAPER CO. et al.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Jan. 19, 1954.

Berman & Berman, Lewiston, for plaintiff.

Robinson & Richardson, Portland, for defendant.

Before MERRILL, C. J., and THAXTER, FELLOWS and WILLIAMSON, JJ.

WEBBER, Justice.

On appeal from a pro forma decree of the Superior Court affirming a decree of the Industrial Accident Commission awarding compensation to petitioner as widow of deceased employee.

The essential facts as found by the Commission are not in dispute. After lunch on August 23, 1951, decedent was walking along a loading platform toward the location of his afternoon work assignment. Suddenly he fell, the fall being observed by other employees. He was seen to clasp both hands to his left side or abdomen, and heard to give some sort of outcry. He then slumped slowly and sidewise, and then fell to the platform, his face striking on the left side. He was rendered unconscious and died four days later. The cause of death was a fracture of the skull with possible brain lacerations resulting from the impact of the head of the decedent upon the platform.

The platform at the point of fall was composed of plates of heavy steel about a quarter inch thick with a small embossed pattern. The pattern was present for safety purposes and was serving those purposes. The day was hot and dry. The platform was dry and free from obstructions or foreign substances such as water, oil, grease, or clay. The decedent did not slip, trip or stumble. His work had been light and there was no suggestion of overexertion. The fall was caused not by any condition of the employment or any risk or hazard connected therewith, but was caused solely and exclusively by a seizure or sudden illness within and personal to the decedent. In short, as properly found by the Commission, we are considering what is known as an idiopathic fall on and to a level floor. Whether such an accident is compensable appears to be of novel impression in this state.

It is not disputed that decedent was injured by an accident, that the injury caused his death, and that the accident occurred in the course of his employment. The only issue is whether or not the accident arose out of his employment as required by R.S.1944, Chap. 26, Sec. 8. Upon this question there is a decided split of authority and much confusion in the reasoning employed. As some of this confusion appears to have arisen from a failure to distinguish between types of falls and the reasoning applicable thereto, some discussion of the several classifications may be helpful. In this discussion we are aided by the valuable summary in Larson's Workmen's Compensation Law, Vol. 1, pages 96 to 106 inc. and pages 158 to 175 inc.

Unexplained Falls

There the cause of a fall is entirely unknown, but the fall occurs in the course of employment, most courts allow compensation. The theory of compensability seems to rest on a strong inference amounting to a presumption that the injury would not have occurred except for some condition risk, or hazard of the employment, and therefore arose out of the employment. It falls upon the employer to rebut the inference and explain the fall. Mailman's Case, 118 Me. 172, 106 A. 606. The same presumption arises and the same result is reached in the case of unexplained deaths which occur in the course of employment. Moriarty's Case, 126 Me. 358, 138 A. 555; Westman's Case, 118 Me. 133, 10 A. 532; see Larson, supra, page 101.

Idiopathic Falls

When an employee is suddenly overtaken by an internal weakness, illness, or seizure which induces a fall, such a fall is usually referred to as an idiopathic fall. The peculiar aspect of such falls is that their originating cause is a physical condition personal to the victim and unrelated to the situation in which he happens to be or the external conditions of his employment. Injuries from such falls have, however, been held compensable whenever some special and appreciable risk or hazard of the employment has become a contributing factor.

Falls from a height. When an employee suffers an idiopathic fall in the course of his employment from a height above the level floor, compensation has quite uniformly been allowed, at least where the height is sufficient to constitute an appreciable risk or hazard of employment. Baltimore Dry Docks & Shipbuilding Co. v. Webster, 139 Md. 616, 116 A. 842; Santacroce v. Sag Harbor Brick Works, 182 App.Div. 442, 169 N.Y.S. 695; Carroll v. What Cheer Stables Co., 38 R.I. 421, 96 A. 208, L.R.A.1916D, 154.

Falls onto objects. Compensation has usually been allowed for the results of idiopathic falls against objects which are present as part of the conditions of employment and which present some appreciable risk or hazard of employment. Examples of such objects are plant machinery, motor boxes, sawhorses, tables, posts and the like. Industrial Comm. v. Nelson, 127 Ohio St. 41, 186 N.E. 735; Varao's Case, 316 Mass. 363, 55 N.E.2d 451; National Automobile & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm., 75 Cal.App.2d 677, 171 P.2d 594; Connelly v. Samaritan Hosp., 259 N.Y. 137, 181 N.E. 76; Garcia v. Texas Indem. Co., 146 Tex. 413, 209 S.W.2d 333.

Idiopathic falls induced by nature of work. When an idiopathic fall is itself caused or induced by the nature of employment, it is compensable. A common example is the fainting spell or dizziness attributable to overexertion in employment. We allowed compensation when a watchman's leg pained and then collapsed as a result of exertion in making rounds and climbing stairs. Webber's Case, 121 Me. 410, 117 A. 513. The resulting fall was 'traceable to his work' and caused by it.

Level floor falls--no special risk. When we reach consideration of the idiopathic fall to the level floor, not from a height, not onto or against an object, not caused or induced by the nature of the work or any condition of the floor, we are dealing with an injury which is in no real sense caused by any condition, risk or hazard of the employment. 'To arise out of the employment the injury must have been due to a risk of the employment.' Boyce's Case, 146 Me. 335 at page 341, 81 A.2d 670 at page 673. 'It is not sufficient to sustain an award that the employment occasioned the presence of the employee where the injury occurred.' Gooch's Case, 128 Me. 86 at page 91, 145 A. 737 at page 739. As was stated in Dasaro v. Ford Motor Co., 280 App.Div. 266, 113 N.Y.S.2d 413, 415, 'the ground below is a universal and normal boundary on one side of life. In any epileptic fit anywhere, the ground or a floor would end the fall.' It is true that a hard floor may enhance an injury, but in varying degree all floors are hard. All places of employment must have floors, be such floors only the hard packed soil of Mother Earth. We do not care to undertake the confusing task of determining from case to case when a floor is hard enough to constitute an appreciable risk or hazard and when not. One might fall heavily upon a cement floor without injury, while another might fall upon soft sand and break a wrist. We feel that the test of 'hardness' of the floor too readily lends itself to a reductio ad absurdum.

We have reviewed with interest those cases which hold the contrary. They rest primarily upon the difficulty of distinguishing between falls from heights or falls against objects and falls from and to the level floor. Such a case was Savage v. St. Aeden's Church, 122 Conn. 343, 189 A. 599. This appears to have been a case of an unexplained fall and might have been decided on that ground. However, in a three to two decision, the majority announced the rule that idiopathic level floor falls are compensable. The dissenters insisted that such a rule disregards the 'arising out of employment' test. In accord with the Savage case, Protectu Awning Shutter Co. v. Cline, 154 Fla. 30, 16 So.2d 342; Barlau v. Minneapolis-Moline Power Imp. Co., 214 Minn. 564, 9 N.W.2d 6; Pollock v. Studebaker Corp., Ind.App., 97 N.E.2d 631; General Ins. Corp. v. Wickersham, Tex.Civ.App., 235 S.W.2d 215. In the Wickersham case, supra, the court pointed out that the fall was in fact unexplained, but went on to treat it as though caused by a 'dizzy spell'. The fall was upon a tile floor. In the Pollock case, supra, the fall was on a wood floor after the employee 'blacked out'. Here the court seems to lay stress on the hardness of the floor,...