Scott v. Kerr
| Decision Date | 19 July 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 32684,32684 |
| Citation | 156 So.2d 847 |
| Parties | Ralph C. SCOTT, Petitioner, v. Frank KERR, doing business as Kerr's Food Center and the Florida Industrial Commission, Respondents. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
E. R. Mills, Jr., Ocala, for petitioner.
Green & Simmons, Ocala, for Frank Kerr, doing business as Kerr's Food Center.
Burnis T. Coleman and Patrick H. Mears, Tallahassee, for the Florida Industrial Commission.
By a petition for writ of certiorari we are requested to review an order of the Florida Industrial Commission reversing an order of a deputy commissioner who had awarded compensation benefits for an industrially related heart attack.
We must decide whether the heart attack was the product of petitioner's industrial activity.
Petitioner Scott was employed as a butcher by the respondent Kerr. Among his routine duties he was required to lift sides of beef weighing approximately 100 pounds and boxes of chickens weighing approximately 65 pounds. On December 11, 1961, while in the course of his employment, Scott entered his employer's refrigerator for the purpose of obtaining two boxes of chickens. The boxes were stacked on a shelf approximately shoulder height. As claimant attempted to remove one of the boxes it slipped and fell towards the floor. The claimant reached down and caught the 65 pound box of chickens with his left arm and hand before it reached the floor. This effort placed him in an awkward position in catching the box of chickens. Immediately following the exertion, Scott felt sharp pains in his left arm. Within a matter of minutes he felt additional pains in both left and right arms and pain in his chest, which he described as 'a very tight-pulling, squeezing pain * * *.'
He immediately asked to be relieved of further work for the day. He originally suspected 'acute indigestion.' On December 18, 1961, after an electrocardiogram, his doctor diagnosed his condition as a myocardial infarction. A claim for compensation was subsequently filed.
At the hearing the claimant's doctor testified that he had an arteriosclerotic condition preceding the heart attack. He conceded that an infarction could result from exertion or it could occur even in the absence of exertion. He explained that a myocardial infarction is simply the death of a certain portion of the heart muscle, which results from an occlusion or cutting off of the blood supply to the muscle. The occlusion could be the product of a number of conditions or occurrences. In this instance claimant's doctor was of the opinion and testified to the effect that 'the chicken episode' triggered or initiated the coronary occlusion. The physician for the employer submitted an opinion to the effect that the occlusion could have occurred under almost any circumstances. It was his view that the so-called chicken episode was not in this instance the initiating factor. Testimony before the deputy did not establish a date of maximum medical recovery. However, the deputy commissioner accepted the testimony of claimant's physician. He found that Scott was injured by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment on December 11, 1961. He awarded temporary total benefits followed by temporary partial benefits. On review the Full Commission reversed the deputy. It held that there was no evidence of a strain in excess of that normally encountered in carrying out the duties of a butcher. Relying upon our opinion in Victor Wine & Liquor, Inc. v. Beasley, Fla., 141 So.2d 581, the Full Commission concluded that there was no unusual strain or exertion which would support a causal connection between the heart attack and Scott's employment. The majority of the Full Commission directed the deputy to dismiss the claim. We now have this order for review.
In reaching the conclusion which we hereafter announce we do so by observing established limitations upon the scope of review available to the Full Commission and to this Court when examining a compensation order of a deputy commissioner. It is our function to look to the record to ascertain whether the order of the deputy commissioner is supported by competent substantial evidence which accords with logic and...
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Wolbert, Saxon & Middleton v. Warren
..." 141 So.2d at 584 (emphasis supplied). Two years later the court refined the "accident" exception to Victor Wine in Scott v. Kerr, 156 So.2d 847 (Fla.1963), holding compensable a heart attack suffered by a butcher immediately after he had attempted to catch a falling 65-pound box of chicke......
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Richardson v. City of Tampa
...do not propose to veer from the course we set in United States Casualty Co. v. Maryland Casualty Co., Fla., 55 So.2d 741, and Scott v. Kerr, Fla., 156 So.2d 847, and have since meticulously followed, in respect of the weight to be given the findings of fact by a deputy commissioner. We said......
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Peltier v. Barbour
...weight and will not be reversed unless there is no competent evidence according with logic and reason to support his order. Scott v. Kerr (Fla.1963) 156 So.2d 847; Wilkes v. Oscar's Transfer & Storage (Fla.1964), 164 So.2d 810; Hastings v. City of Fort Lauderdale Fire Dept. (Fla.1965), 178 ......
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Tingle v. Board of County Com'rs (Dade County Port Authority), 33992
...and falling in an awkward position was common to his employment duties. I would also like to point out that the case of Scott v. Kerr, Fla.1963, 156 So.2d 847, appears to me to be adequate authority for reversing the deputy's denial of the instant 'This cause should be remanded to the deput......