Schaefer v. Rechter

• Decision Date: 09 April 1956
• Docket Number: No. 44819,No. 2,44819,2
• Citation: 290 S.W.2d 118
• Parties: Henry J. SCHAEFER, Respondent, v. Sam RECHTER, Defendant, and Rechter Bros., Clothing Co., Inc., a corporation, Appellant
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

Page 118

290 S.W.2d 118

Henry J. SCHAEFER, Respondent, v. Sam RECHTER, Defendant and Rechter Bros., Clothing Co., Inc., a corporation, Appellant.

No. 44819.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

April 9, 1956.

Motion for Rehearing or to Transfer to Court en Banc Denied

May 14, 1956.

Walther, Hacker, Walther & Barnard, George W. Cloyd, St. Louis, for appellant.

Berthold & Bialson, St. Louis, for respondent.

EAGER, Presiding Judge.

This is a suit for personal injuries in which plaintiff had a verdict for $10,200 against the corporate defendant and it has appealed. The parties will be referred to as they appeared below. Defendant asserts that the verdict is excessive by $10,000, primarily because the trial court submitted, as an element of the damage, heart conditions which developed after the original injury, and which, allegedly, were not caused thereby. A suitable withdrawal instruction was offered and refused.

Plaintiff was unloading parcel post packages at the dock of the St. Louis Post Office on January 24, 1953; the Ford panel truck which he drove had been backed to within 5 or 6 feet of the dock and he was working behind it, with the rear door open. An employee of the defendant, in attempting to back a Cadillac car into an adjoining space, struck the bumper of plaintiff's truck with his own bumper, and with sufficient force to damage plaintiff's bumper and fender. This impact, according to plaintiff's testimony, knocked his truck backward 4 or 5 feet and the 'top of the Ford' struck him across the bridge of the nose and the eyes. For the purpose of determining the submissibility of the element of heart damage, we must consider the evidence most favorable to plaintiff. Plaintiff testified that he fell over on the platform, tried to grab it, but missed, hit on the left side of his chest, and in some manner fell back into the truck. He climbed out, and had a 'terrific pain' in his left chest, and his nose was bleeding. Nevertheless, he jacked up his bumper so as to release the interlocked bumpers and also jacked up his fender sufficiently to clear the tire. Thereafter, he drove back to his place of business, drove his employer home, and walked four blocks to his own home. About 2:00 P.M. he went to his family doctor, Dr. Otto C. Hanser; he called the doctor's attention to the pain in his chest and arm; the doctor gave him an injection, cleaned out his nose, and sent him elsewhere for X-rays, which were negative. Thereafter, and up to February 24th, he saw the doctor six times. During this period he continued to work, but, he said, with increasing difficulty; his nose remained swollen and he spat blood for about four days; he developed a tingling sensation in his hands; at times he had pains in his left arm and chest, which he described as spasmodic and severe; the frequency of these is not shown, but they always disappeared in 5-10 minutes when he sat down, until about the time he went to the hospital. He said, however, that these were more severe during the week immediately preceding that event, and the doctor told him to take it easy. On February 23rd, Sunday, he had one of these pains which lasted for some hours and he called the doctor to his home. Getting no relief, he was sent to the Veterans' Administration Hospital where he remained for nearly eight weeks. It seems to be conceded that he suffered a coronary occlusion on that day, and it is apparent that his subsequent incapacity stems from that. So far as he knew he had never previously had anything wrong with his heart, and had never had similar pains. He had done no work from February 23, 1953, to the time of trial, October 18, 1954.

Dr. Hanser was plaintiff's sole medical witness. He is a general practitioner, and had practiced approximately thirty-five years. No objections were made to his qualifications. He stated that he did treat heart cases, but called in a specialist at times. He had known plaintiff since 1942, had treated him for miscellaneous ills not material here, and had found nothing wrong with his heart from previous stethoscopic examination. He saw plaintiff on January 24, 1953, and found a contusion or bruise on his left chest from below the nipple line up to his shoulder; he also observed and treated the facial abrasions and bleeding, and found a fast pulse and onehalf degree of fever. He gave plaintiff penicillin and an innoculation for tetanus, and ordered an X-ray, which was negative. At that time the doctor thought plaintiff might have a fractured rib. He saw plaintiff thereafter on six occasions up to February 23rd; on some or all of these occasions he complained of recurring pain in his chest, which disappeared with rest. The doctor thought this might be neuritis and treated him for that. At some time in this interim the doctor began to suspect that the heart might be involved and had a cardiograph made, which showed no abnormal reaction. It seems that on February 22nd, the doctor found for the first time what he definitely considered to be an anginal spasm, though he had suspected such before. On the next day, February 23rd, he found the much more severe attack which was diagnosed as a coronary occlusion.

Dr. Hanser testified, largely without objection: that angina pectoris is a spasmodic contraction of a coronary artery or a branch of such artery (they being the vital arteries lying inside the heart itself and supplying blood to the heart muscle) that such a spasm closes, or almost closes, the artery or branch; that these contractions cause pain, and in his opinion, anginal spasms caused plaintiff's pains; that these spasms result from some condition of the nerves which control the musculature of the arteries, and that they may come on with exertion, excitement, worry, nervous strain, etc., and with or without trauma; that such is a relatively common condition without history of trauman, and that in any event, there is probably an underlying arteriosclerosis (a degenerative, progressive change in the arterial walls); anginal spasms usually pass off in a few minutes, but leave one weak; they cause no organic change in the arteries themselves. However, such a patient must be careful, as he may die in an attack. A cardiograph does not disclose angina unless one is made while an attack is going on, and angina is usually diagnosed from history; the history plaintiff gave was somewhat characteristic of angina, with or without trauma. A coronary occlusion, on the other hand, consists of a clot in a coronary vessel; the witness used that term more or less interchangeably with 'infarction.' An infarction is demonstrated by cardiograph. The doctor further stated opinions, as follows: that plaintiff's first attack of anginaresulted resulted from the trauma in question, and that this attack 'sparked off' the subsequent anginal attacks; that he knew of no specific medical authority for that theory, but that he thought almost 'any' of the medical books 'talk about' recurrent anginal seizures from trauma; (when asked concerning his own experience, he mentioned a case which, at least from the explanation given, was not directly illustrative of the point); that any violent blow can cause angina pectoris and that he 'is sure' it did so here; that if anginal attacks recur a number of times they slow the circulation and this finally 'culminates in an infarct or coronary thrombosis'; that trauma can cause a coronary occlusion, as in a prize fight, by causing the vessel to spasm; that here 'it was all a traumatic thing, from this blow'; and, that the trauma caused the 'heart condition, the spasm of the coronary artery and the condition that the man is in.' He did not think that a blow would loosen deposits of 'cholesterin' in or on the linings of the arteries. He had advised plaintiff to stop work, but the latter felt that he had to keep on. He had treated plaintiff since he left the hospital, and pronounced him 'completely totally disabled from manual labor.' His total bill was $200.

Defendant's medical evidence came from Dr. Charles W. Miller, an internist with considerable experience in heart work. We may deal with this very briefly, under these circumstances; his opinions were almost entirely opposed to those of Dr. Hanser. He had examined plaintiff approximately six months before the trial; he found some hardening of the arteries, definite evidence of a previous coronary occlusion and subsequent myocardial infarction (which is the death of that segment of the heart muscle previously supplied by the occluded artery or branch), and autonomic disturbance of the nerves which caused some shoulder-arm pain, and found that plaintiff was then disabled; he thought that plaintiff might well be able to return to work which was not too strenuous, particularly when his shoulder-arm pain cleared up, but this depended somewhat on his future progress and check-ups. This physician was not certain that plaintiff had originally suffered anginal attacks at all; he was certain that plaintiff's disability was due entirely to the occlusion, and that it had no relation to the trauma. He said: that an occlusion causes serious, organic damage, and that perhaps half of the victims suffer immediate death; that it would not be possible for a coronary occlusion to be caused by a trauma which had occurred 29 or 30 days previously; nor would it be caused by any trauma to the chest unless the trauma was sufficient to damage the bony structures and the heart muscle itself. He did not think that trauma could cause more than a single seizure of angina, but did say that: 'You can find authors who state that an anginal syndrome might be precipitated by trauma.'

Plaintiff's wages had been $56.50 per week prior to his injury. Since defendant only asks a remand on the issue of damages, we need not discuss the evidence concerning liability. Liability in some minor amount is substantially conceded. Lay witnesses for defendant minimized somewhat the extent...