T.J. Moss Tie Co. v. Rollins
| Decision Date | 13 January 1951 |
| Citation | 191 Tenn. 577,235 S.W.2d 585,27 Beeler 577 |
| Parties | , 191 Tenn. 577 T. J. MOSS TIE CO. et al. v. ROLLINS et al. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
Raulston, Raulston & Swafford, South Pittsburg, for appellants.
A. A. Kelly, South Pittsburg, for appellees.
The Chancellor awarded compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Law, Code, § 6851 et seq., to the petitioners Jennie Rollins and her minor son on the ground that the deceased Emmit Rollins lost his life by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment as a day laborer for the defendant tie company. It is insisted by the defendants that the cause of death of deceased was a matter of conjecture and surmise and therefore no compensation could be allowed.
The record discloses that the deceased was apparently in good health and that he was engaged in loading cross-ties; that on the date of his death, he worked several hours at this job and later had lunch and rested about forty-five minutes. After resuming work, the deceased and his fellow employee carried one more tie and placed it on the stack, which was then about four feet high. The fellow employee returned to the pile for another tie and finding that deceased was not following him, turned and saw deceased standing at the end of the stack. Within seconds, Rollins' head snapped and he fell to the ground. It appears that the temperature that day was about eighty-five or eighty-six degrees and that the deceased was working in the hot sun. An autopsy was made by Dr. J. W. Adams, a very reputable pathologist in Chattanooga. This witness testified positively that Rollins' death was not the result of heart failure but of sunstroke; that his opinion was based on his personal examination of the body.
It is insisted by the petitioners that the present case is much stronger than that presented in Milstead v. Kaylor, 186 Tenn. 642, 212 S.W.2d 610, 612. In this case, there was no testimony of a physician. It appears that Kaylor, the employer, was engaged in cutting and sawing timber; that the employee Milstead had been in his service for about a year or more at the time of his death. On the date of death, the deceased was assisting others in loading timber on a trailer. As he was attempting to load a piece of timber he 'fell over' and "he was lying there with his chest going up and down that way,--and I went there and he was dying.' After the deceased had fallen, as above described by one of the witnesses, this witness called a doctor. By the time the doctor arrived, the deceased was dead. At the time of this occurrence it was extremely hot'.
It was further found in the Milstead case that the deceased employee was a strong, able-bodied, healthy man as in the case now before us and that he had never had sinking spells or any form of heart trouble. In that case, it was the theory of the widow and the children that the death of the deceased employee was due to heat prostration or sunstroke caused by the employee working in this extremely hot weather. The doctor who was called, and who arrived within a few minutes after his death, noted on the death certificate that death was 'due to probable heart attack.' No medical testimony was offered by either side. The petitioners contented themselves by showing the...
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Anderson v. Save-A-Lot, Ltd.
...between the conditions under which the work [was] required to be performed and the resulting injury." T.J. Moss Tie Co. v. Rollins, 191 Tenn. 577, 235 S.W.2d 585 (1951). Bell, 597 S.W.2d at 733-34; see also Hill, 942 S.W.2d at 487; Reeser v. Yellow Freight System, Inc., 938 S.W.2d 690, 692 ......
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Medrano v. Mcdr, Inc.
...origin in a risk connected with the employment and ... flowed from that source as a rational consequence." T.J. Moss Tie Co. v. Rollins, 191 Tenn. 577, 235 S.W.2d 585, 586 (1951). For example, "`an injury arising from an assault on an employee committed solely to gratify [the employer's] pe......
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...J. C. Mahan Motor Co., 157 Tenn. 613, 11 S.W.2d 672; Whaley v. Patent Button Co., 184 Tenn. 700, 202 S.W.2d 649; T. J. Moss Tire Co. v. Rollins, 191 Tenn. 577, 235 S.W.2d 585; Tapp v. Tapp, 192 Tenn. 1, 236 S.W.2d While some of the above mentioned cases seem to be border line decisions whic......
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...performed and the resulting injury.’ ” Anderson v. Save–A–Lot, Ltd., 989 S.W.2d 277, 280 (Tenn.1999) (quoting T.J. Moss Tie Co. v. Rollins, 191 Tenn. 577, 235 S.W.2d 585 (1951) (alteration in original)). The phrase “causal connection” means “cause in the sense the accident had its origin in......