Schroeder v. Hatfield Wire & Cable Co.
| Decision Date | 03 February 1947 |
| Parties | SCHROEDER v. HATFIELD WIRE & CABLE CO. |
| Court | New Jersey Court of Common Pleas |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Lela Schroeder, employee, opposed by Hatfield Wire & Cable Company, employer. From an award in favor of employee, the employer appeals.
Reversed and employee's petition dismissed.
Harry Indusky, of Jersey City, for petitioner-appellee.
Alfred J. Orth, of Union City, for respondent-appellant.
Petitioner, while in respondent's employ, fell backwards over a box and sustained injury to her right leg and to her back on the right side below the belt. Upon the hearing in the Bureau the back injuries only were involved in the claimed disability. The evidence of disability is largely subjective. Petitioner testifies that she experiences a constant ache in the indicated point in her back; that it bothers her if she does heavy work; that she cannot sit too long at one time or in one position. She says: This is the extent of her complaint, so she testifies.
The accident occurred November 9, 1945. The claim for resulting injuries came before the Bureau for hearing on May 27, 1946. Previously the petitioner had an accident while in the employ of the Western Electric Company. This occurred August 3, 1944. The claim arising thereunder came before the Bureau for hearing on September 11, 1945. The four dates last mentioned are important. For the prior accident an award was made and paid of eight per cent. of total. For the claimed injury now before us the award in the Bureau is two per cent. of total, and from this award respondent appeals.
Petitioner's medical expert is Dr. Visconti, who was her expert also in the former hearing. He diagnoses the present injury as the residual effect of a contusion of the lower back superimposed upon a previously traumatized back; and he estimates disability at five per cent. of total attributable to the second accident. Petitioner's present disability, referable to both accidents, he estimates at fifteen per cent. of total. It will be seen therefor that the problem submitted on this appeal is one of determining as correctly as possible, upon the basis of the credible evidence, how much of petitioner's disability, if any, is ascribable to the second accident. The burden of proof is upon petitioner. The two traumas were inflicted upon the same region of the back.
Close scrutiny of the record reveals something of a tissue of contradiction that challenges belief. In the nature of the issue presented, petitioner's interest lies in minimizing the enduring effect of the first injury with correlative maximizing of the effects of the second injury. To this interest her testimony is obviously addressed. The court must adjudge the credibility with which it is done. A transcript of the testimony taken on the hearing of the first claim was admitted into evidence and is part of the record before us.
In the present hearing petitioner testified that when she returned to work after her first injury she was ‘feeling fine,’ but according to the transcript she testified at the former hearing that she never returned to work for the Western Electric Company; that her first employment after the injury was with the Broadway Hosiery, which she had to give up because she could not stand the work; that she then took employment with the Jersey City Printing Company, where she remained only three days, having to leave there because she was confined to her bed for a week and a half, being unable to stand. Whether or not she returned to work for the Western Electric Company is not important; but her statement that, upon resuming employment after her first injury and before the second one, she was ‘feeling fine’ is quite important, for from it we must conclude that she falsified at the first hearing or that she falsifies here. Categorically she states in the present hearing that in September, 1945 (two months before the second injury) she no longer had any pain. But on September 11, 1945, testifying in the former hearing, she described her then continuing pain very definitely and in explicit detail. ‘I always have a pain’ she then said. At the time of that hearing she had not yet been able to return to work, and was then wearing a belt, giving as the reason that when she did not wear it her back did not feel ‘too good.’ Petitioner's statement in the present case that she had no pain in September, 1945, was sharply emphasized to her by counsel's next question, whereupon she made the qualification that in September, 1945, she had ‘slight pain, but not like I have now.’
It is not disputed that the complaints of pain and disability made by peti...
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