Sosenko v. American Airmotive Corp., 32463
| Decision Date | 11 September 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 32463,32463 |
| Citation | 156 So.2d 489 |
| Parties | Theodore SOSENKO, Petitioner, v. AMERICAN AIRMOTIVE CORPORATION, United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, and the Florida Industrial Commission, Respondents. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Johnson, Gaine & Kaiser and Thomas J. Gaine, Miami, for petitioner.
Summers Warden, Miami, for American Airmotive Corp. and U. S. Fidelity and Guaranty Co.; Burnis T. Coleman and Patrick H. Mears, Tallahassee, for Florida Industrial Commission, respondents.
May 9, 1961, while in line of duty, a scaffold on which petitioner was working collapsed, throwing petitioner to a cement deck causing him serious injury. He experienced immediate pain in his right foot and was promptly provided medical care. He was found to have sustained a fracture of the right os calcis which the employer accepted as being compensable. He was carried to Hialeah Hospital and placed under the care of Dr. Ledford Gregory for a period of eight days. As a result of the accident, petitioner became totally disabled and was compensated by the carrier for temporary total disability.
Petitioner is 38 years of age with formal schooling through the eleventh grade. He had worked more than eight years as a spray painter for the New York Central Railroad. For more than three years he followed the same employment with National Air Lines. He had been working for his present employer for approximately two months in the same line of work.
Upon discharge from Hialeah Hospital petitioner walked on crutches at home, in severe pain. While on crutches the blood would flow to his foot requiring that it be elevated above his head. Due to the pain he lost sleep and was required to take sleeping pills. He was depressed and upset because of his foot condition and the fear that he would never be able to return to his old occupation. His occupation required much climbing and walking and he worried about that. Because of his pain, fear of not getting his job back and his dwinding finances, he became despondent.
August 11, 1961, Dr. Gregory informed petitioner that the could return to light work provided he did little standing or walking and no climbing. At this time petitioner's foot was swollen and painful and he resolved to wait two weeks before seeking work.
August 13, 1961, about 2:00 A.M., after petitioner had engaged in a normal day's activities and a casual evening with friends, he experienced chest pains and was admitted to the North Shore Hospital where his condition was diagnosed as an acute myocardian ischemia and posterior wall infarct. During this time the carrier paid claimant compensation for temporary total disability for his ankle injury but denied payment of remedial treatment and hospital expenses for the heart attack. Claim was made only for medical benefits and not for temporary or permanent disability benefits.
Claimant was treated for his heart attack by Dr. Morris E. Kuckku and was examined for the carrier by Dr. Morton M. Halpern. After his heart attack, he returned to American Airmotive in January 1962. He worked four days and because of excessive pain in his foot and ankle, he had to stop working. He returned for treatment and his ankle was operated upon.
There are two transcripts of the hearing before the deputy commissioner and petitioner is uncertain which one was before the full commission on review. A stipulation was entered into on May 29, 1962, and an order entered providing for the court reporter's notes to be transcribed and become the official transcript. This contains about 70 pages which is all of the testimony.
Pursuant to petitioner's claim for medical expenses, the deputy commissioner found that there was a causal connection between the heart attack of August 13, 1961, and the compensable ankle injury of May 9, 1961, and accordingly ordered the carrier to pay the remedial claims. The deputy commissioner largely based his ruling upon the medical opinions of Doctors Kuckku and Halpern. In his order the deputy found in part:
'It was Dr. Kuckku's opinion that the fracture of the os calcis with the resultant confinment [sic] and inactivity of the claimant, together with the state of anxiety tension, the state of worry, the increasesd amount of cigarette smoking which resulted from the pain and confinment [sic] due to the fractured so calcis, in that the claimant testified while he was working he could not smoke on the job and therefore his cigarette consumption amounted to about 1/2 pack per day and that since he was injured his consumption had increased to 2 1/2 to 3 packs a day, that based on the aforesaid conditions the fracture of the so calcis was a competent, accelerating or precipitating cause of the acute myocardial ischemia which the claimant suffered on August 13, 1961.
'Dr. Morton Halpern testified that the sequillae of the fractured os calcis, in his opinion, was a competentAccelerating, precipitating or aggravating cause of the acute myocardial occulusion [sic] suffered by the claimant on or about the 12th day of August 1961.' (Emphasis supplied) (R. 75)
Upon review the full commission reversed the deputy commissioner and dismissed the claim on the dual grounds that there was no competent substantial evidence to sustain the deputy commissioner's finding that the heart attack was causally related to the original ankle injury and because the deputy commissioner's findings failed to accord with the essential requirements of law relating to the compensability of the so-called 'heart cases' as set forth in the case of Victor Wine & Liquor, Inc. v. Beasley, Fla.1962, 141 So.2d 581. The full commission's order reflects that it was aware of the fact that the rule in the Victor Wine case specifically applied to heart attacks suffered by an employee during the course of...
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...injury must likewise be regarded as arising out of the employment and compensable was first set forth in Sosenko v. American Airmotive Corp., 156 So.2d 489 (Fla.1963). The threshold inquiry under this test is whether the subsequent injury is related to the primary injury. See also D'Angelo ......
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