Stuckey v. Furr Food Cafeteria
| Decision Date | 29 March 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 7156,7156 |
| Citation | 1963 NMSC 64,380 P.2d 172,72 N.M. 15 |
| Parties | Enda STUCKEY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. FURR FOOD CAFETERIA, Employer, and Employers National Insurance Company, Inc., Insurer, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | New Mexico Supreme Court |
Neal & Neal, Hobbs, for appellants.
Williams, Johnson & Houston, Hobbs, for appellee.
This appeal results from a workmen's compensation award for permanent partial disability resulting from an accidental injury occurring May 12, 1960, and a finding that the causal connection between the accident and the disability was established by expert medical testimony as a medical probability.
The price construction of Ch. 67, Sec. 7, Laws 1959 (Sec. 59-10-13.3, N.M.S.A., 1953) contended for in this case was not directly passed upon in either Montano v. Saavedra, 70 N.M. 332, 373 P.2d 824, or Yates v. Matthews, N.M., 379 P.2d 441. It was there held that the 1959 statute requires the workman to establish a causal connection between the accidental injury and the claimed disability as a medical probability by expert medical testimony, if it be denied that the disability is a natural and direct result of the accident.
Appellants now contend that, in addition, the statute requires that medical evidence establish a direct and natural causal relationship between the accidental injury and the claimed disability. They assert that there is no substantial support in the evidence that the claimed disability in this case was the natural and direct result of the accidental injury.
Section 59-10-13.3, supra, so far as pertinent, reads:
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'(3) when the disability is a natural and direct result of the accident.
The manner in which the requirement of (3), that the disability be a natural and direct result of the accident, be established is clearly provided by subsection B. The words 'natural and direct,' as used in the statute, signify an understandable and reasonable proximity of cause and effect as distinguished from remote and doubtful consequences resulting from a given occurrence. It is not necessary that the exact words of the statute be used by a witness. If a disability is established by expert medical testimony to be the result of an accidental injury, as a medical probability, as opposed to a medical possibility, the requirements of the statute have been satisfied.
While it is true that the testimony of...
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Trujillo v. Beaty Elec. Co., Inc.
...and conclusions of law. See Lyon v. Catron County Commissioners, supra; Gammon v. Ebasco Corporation, supra; Stuckey v. Furr Food Cafeteria, 72 N.M. 15, 380 P.2d 172 (1963). Point Defendants' Point II again challenges findings of fact nos. 7, 8, 10 and 11 as not being supported by substanti......
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Aragon v. State Corrections Dept., 12616
...test adds to the proximate-cause test does not, however, fully define the meaning of the additional test. In Stuckey v. Furr Food Cafeteria, 72 N.M. 15, 16, 380 P.2d 172, 173 (1963), our supreme court construed the words "natural and direct" to "signify an understandable and reasonable prox......
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Torres v. Kennecott Copper Corp.
...are. * * *' This court will not disturb a finding of fact on appeal which is supported by substantial evidence. Stuckey v. Furr Food Cafeteria, 72 N.M. 15, 380 P.2d 172; Yates v. Matthews, supra. The challenged finding, supported by the opinion of a medical expert, is not erroneous as a mat......
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Weston v. Carper Drilling Co.
...Constr. Co., 74 N.M. 613, 396 P.2d 731. The term 'natural and direct' as used in the statute was interpreted in Stuckey v. Furr Food Cafeteria, 72 N.M. 15, 380 P.2d 172, to signify 'an understandable and reasonable proximity of cause and effect as distinguished from remote and doubtful cons......