Shelby Mut. Ins. Co. v. Dudley

• Decision Date: 27 November 1978
• Citation: 574 S.W.2d 43
• Parties: SHELBY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. Margie DUDLEY, Executrix of the Estate of E. W. Dudley, Appellee.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 43

574 S.W.2d 43

SHELBY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. Margie DUDLEY, Executrix of the Estate of E. W. Dudley, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Tennessee.

Nov. 27, 1978.

Thomas H. Rainey, Menzies, Rainey & Kizer, Jackson, for appellant.

T. Robert Hill, Hill & Sanders, Jackson, for appellee.

OPINION

COOPER, Justice.

Shelby Mutual Insurance Company has appealed from the decree of the Chancery Court of Madison County awarding Margie M. Dudley workmen's compensation benefits for the death of her husband, Ewel W. Dudley. Appellant primarily insists there is no material evidence to support the decree.

Appellant is the workmen's compensation insurance carrier for the Madison County Department of Education, for whom Mr. Dudley was working at the time of his death. Mr. Dudley was a part-time custodian at the Southside High School. A part of Mr. Dudley's work assignment was the daily opening of the high school at approximately 7:00 a. m. and the cleaning of bathrooms and designated classrooms prior to the beginning of classes for the day. On the morning of September 13, 1976 his fifth day on the job Mr. Dudley was observed unlocking and entering the school building at the assigned time. A substitute teacher found Mr. Dudley on the floor of a classroom at approximately 8:20 a. m. A dust mop was nearby. The condition of the classroom indicated that Mr. Dudley had moved one row of desks and had made one pass across the room with the dust mop. Mr. Dudley was immediately taken to the local hospital where he was pronounced "dead on arrival."

Some four months thereafter, on motion of appellant, an autopsy was performed by Dr. James Bell, an associate professor of pathology at the University of Tennessee Medical School and Deputy Medical Examiner for the State of Tennessee. The autopsy report showed that "death (of Mr. Dudley) was the result of a heart attack. The blood alcohol was 0.09% Ethyl and 0.11 methyl on this embalmed individual."

This court has repeatedly pointed out that there is no iron-clad rule which calls for payment of benefits under the Workmen's Compensation Law where an employee suffers a heart attack while at work and for the denial of benefits where the employee suffers a heart attack while on the way home from work. The key to the recovery or denial of benefits is whether the heart attack is precipitated by the physical activity and exertion of the employee's work. Kingsport Press, Inc. v. Van Huss, 547 S.W.2d 572 (Tenn.1977); Lawrence County Highway Department v. Hardiman, 531 S.W.2d 792 (Tenn.1975).

"If so, an employee who dies in the course of his employment as a result of a heart attack, although suffering from a previous heart disease, is covered under the Workmen's Compensation Act even if the result was produced by ordinary exertion and usual strain of the work. Lawrence County Highway Department v. Hardiman, supra ; Coleman v. Coker, 204 Tenn. 310, 321 S.W.2d 540 (1959). But where the heart attack is not brought on by the work which the employee was doing, or by some external happening in the course of the employment, the employee's death is not covered by the Workmen's Compensation Act. See Chapman v. Aetna Casualty and Surety Co., 221 Tenn. 376, 426 S.W.2d 760 (1968); Travelers Insurance Company v. Googe, 217 Tenn. 272, 397 S.W.2d 368, 371 (1965).

"And, as summed up in R. E. Butts Co. v. Powell, 225 Tenn. 119, 463 S.W.2d 707 (1971),

'The issue upon which cases of this nature are determined is factual; that is, whether the employee experienced the disabling injury which may have accelerated an existing disease while at work on the job. If so, this Court has held in numerous cases that the injury is accidental and compensable under our Workmen's Compensation statutes, even though the employee was not engaged in any spectacularly unusual strain or extraordinary exertion.' " Kingsport Press, Inc. v. Van Huss, 547 S.W.2d 572, 573 (Tenn.1977)

In the trial, in addition to the facts set out above, it was brought out that Mr. Dudley had had two heart attacks prior to his employment by the Madison County Board of Education and that ...