Robinson v. Nashville Mach. Co., Inc.
| Decision Date | 03 December 1973 |
| Citation | 503 S.W.2d 90 |
| Parties | Pauline W. ROBINSON, Respondent-Petitioner, v. NASHVILLE MACHINE COMPANY, INC., and Aetna Life Insurance Company, Petitioners-Defendants. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Richard A. Jones, Farris, Warfield & Samuels, Nashville, for respondent-petitioner.
Douglas M. Fisher, Howell & Fisher, Nashville, for petitioners-defendants.
MEMORANDUM ON PETITION FOR CERTIORARI
In this, a workmen's compensation case, the petitioners, Nashville Machine Company, Inc., and its insurance carrier, Aetna Life Insurance Company, have filed a petition for common law certiorari and supersedeas on the ground there is no other plain, speedy or adequate remedy available. Article 6, § 10, Constitution of Tennessee; T.C.A. § 27--801.
The issue arises upon the refusal of the trial judge to order an autopsy of the deceased employee upon motion of petitioners, pursuant to T.C.A. § 50--1004, on the ground the cause of death was obscure or in dispute. The evidence before the trial judge upon this motion was as follows:
On August 11, 1972, the deceased employee suffered a work related injury, resulting in a hernia, for which surgical repair was done on September 5, 1972. After several days in the hospital the deceased employee was sent home for further recuperation. On September 14, 1972, the deceased employee was returned to the hospital and died in the early morning of September 16, 1972. The death certificate signed by the attending physician, Dr. G. S. Chikkannaiah, stated the cause of death as follows:
Immediate cause (a) cardiac arrest, due to, or as a consequence of: (b) pulmonary embolus vs massive MI (myocardial infarction), due to, or as a consequence of: (c) post traumatic-post herniarrhaphy.
As argued in this Court, the autopsy is necessary to determine if death was caused by a pulmonary embolus in which case death benefits would be due since, under the facts of the case, it could not be plausibly argued the embolus was not related to the surgery, which surgery resulted from a work related injury; or whether death resulted from a myocardial infarction in which case an entirely different fact situation is presented.
Petitioners had no knowledge of the deceased employee's death until September 18, 1972, which was the day of the funeral. On September 25, 1972, a representative of petitioners talked with the deceased employee's widow (the widow is claiming death benefits), informing her it might be necessary to have an autopsy performed in order to clarify the cause of death. On October 9, 1972, representatives of petitioners again called upon the widow and requested she agree that an autopsy be performed. The widow refused, giving as her reason that she had deep religious convictions in regard to disturbing the body of the dead.
On October 31, 1972, petitioners notified the Department of Workmen's Compensation for the State of Tennessee that death benefits in this case were being denied on the ground the cause of death was obscure, which obscurity could be removed by an autopsy and the widow refused to allow an autopsy.
The testimony by letter of Drs. R. Glenn Hammonds and S. G. Chikkannaiah is in the record before us. Dr. Hammonds performed the surgery for the hernia, but upon deceased employee's return to the hospital on September 14, 1972, Dr. Hammonds was not available and Dr. Chikkannaiah received deceased employee as a patient.
Dr. Hammonds stated deceased employee's physical condition prior to surgery was normal with chest clear, heart normal with a regular rythmn. That the post-operative condition was good and deceased employee was allowed to return home to recover from the surgery. Dr. Hammonds with the information he had, including a report from Dr. Chikkannaiah, stated as follows:
The course of events and the manner in which Mr. Robinson died leads me to believe that he suffered a massive pulmonary embolism subsequent to asymptomatic venous thrombosis in probably the pelvic veins, or at least, the larger veins of the upper thigh. He had no evidence of any swelling of the extremities or evidence of phlebitis according to Dr. Chikkannaiah which leads one to believe that he had soft thrombi which were not blocking the veins but rather loosely attached and that one of these became dislodged and passed through the venacava through the right side of the heart and into the pulmonary artery blocking the pulmonary circulation.
On September 14, 1972, deceased employee was taken to the emergency room and upon developing chest pains was admitted for observation. Dr. Chikkannaiah stated a...
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...the light of time and circumstances, it is not distinct in concept from the 'necessity' facet of the test. See Robinson v. Nashville Machine Co., Inc. (1973 Tenn.) 503 S.W.2d 90. Be that as it may, we need not separately address the 'reasonableness' of the autopsy request because the Board ......
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Huey Bros. Lumber Co., Inc. v. Anderson
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