Southern Ice & Utilities Co. v. Barra
| Decision Date | 13 October 1936 |
| Docket Number | 26999. |
| Citation | 62 P.2d 988,178 Okla. 291,1936 OK 618 |
| Parties | SOUTHERN ICE & UTILITIES CO. v. BARRA et al. |
| Court | Oklahoma Supreme Court |
Rehearing Denied Dec. 8, 1936.
Syllabus by the Court.
1. When, in an action for personal injury, the injury complained of is of such a character as to require skilled and professional men to determine the cause and extent thereof the question is one of science and must necessarily be proven by the testimony of skilled professional persons.
2. Where there is some competent evidence reasonably tending to support a finding of fact by the State Industrial Commission upon which an award is made, said award will be sustained. Dolese Bros. v. Bryant et al., 163 Okl. 295, 22 P.2d 85.
Original proceeding by Southern Ice & Utilities Company, employer, to review an award of the State Industrial Commission granting compensation to Frank Barra, employee.
Award affirmed.
Butler & Brown, of Oklahoma City, for petitioner.
Claude Briggs, W. P. Morrison, and John Morrison, all of Oklahoma City, and Mac Q. Williamson, Atty. Gen., for respondents.
This proceeding was brought to vacate an award entered by the State Industrial Commission on the 3d day of February, 1936. The facts are very simple. It is claimed that Frank Barra respondent herein, while in the employ of the Southern Ice & Utilities Company sustained an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment on the 16th day of March, 1935, in the nature of heat exhaustion; that such accident was occasioned while he was working on a pipe for the employer and was due solely to the fact that he exerted himself too much after going from a temperature of 28 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature of the icehouse where he was ordinarily employed into the open in a temperature of between 65 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
It is the principal contention of the petitioner herein that it is utterly impossible to have a so-called sunstroke or heat exhaustion under such circumstances. The petitioner presents the proposition that the testimony is so unworthy of belief that this court will recognize the rule announced by many cases of this and other courts that where the testimony of witnesses is contrary to the natural laws and absolutely contrary to all of the other facts in a case, it will be declared wholly unworthy of belief and a judgment based thereon will be vacated even though such testimony is uncontradicted.
We shall first consider the nature of the injury alleged. The first case called to our attention involving an injury arising by working in temperature sufficient to cause heat exhaustion in this state is Skelly Oil Co. v. State Industrial Commission, 91 Okl. 194, 216 P. 933. The rule laid down therein is stated in the syllabus as follows "If the place of the employees' work, by reason of its location and nature, would likely expose him to the danger of sunstroke, or if the risk of injury by sunstroke is naturally connected with and reasonably incidental to his employment as distinguished from the ordinary risk to which the general public is exposed from climatic conditions, the master will be liable for the consequential injuries." That case is commonly called "a sunstroke case." The rule therein announced has been quite generally followed and in fact no case has been called to our attention in which this court has criticized the rule therein adopted on principle. In Miller-Jackson Co., Inc., et al. v. Watson, 164 Okl. 211, 23 P.2d 391, 392, one of the latest cases to be called to our...
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