Vallee v. Spaulding Fibre Co.

• Decision Date: 01 March 1938
• Citation: 197 A. 697
• Parties: VALLEE v. SPAULDING FIBRE CO.
• Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court

197 A. 697

VALLEE

v. SPAULDING FIBRE CO.

Supreme Court of New Hampshire. Strafford.

March 1, 1938.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Strafford County; Lorimer, Judge.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Eugene Vallee, claimant, opposed by the Spaulding Fibre Company, employer. The court made an award of compensation to the claimant, and the employer filed exceptions.

All exceptions overruled, except one relating to amount of award which remained in abeyance, and case discharged.

Petition for workman's compensation. The plaintiff was hurt April 3, 1936, and received full compensation covering to October 12, 1936. On hearing, in April, 1937, the court awarded compensation on the basis of total disability to April 3, 1938, and of partial disability from then to April 3, 1940. The defendant filed a bill of exceptions which was allowed by Lorimer, J. The exceptions raise the questions of the plaintiff's right to any award, to his right to the amount awarded, to rulings and findings on which the award was based, to the denial of requests for rulings and findings, and to the admission of evidence. So far as their specific enumeration is required, they are stated, with the facts deemed material, in the opinion.

Ovila J. Gregoire, of Dover, and William H. Sleeper, of Exeter, for plaintiff. Hughes & Burns and Charles F. Hartnett, all of Dover (Stanley M. Burns, of Dover, orally), for defendant.

ALLEN, Chief Justice.

The main underlying issue in the case is the cause of the plaintiff's loss of earning capacity during the period for which compensation has been allowed. At the time of his accident he already had certain physical troubles, and it is the defendant's position that the evidence permits no inference that they were not the sole cause of the disability during the period. The defendant admitted some disability resulting from the accident. It paid compensation for six months thereafter, but claims that the accident could not be found to be a factor productive of any subsequent disability.

A substantial fallacy in the defendant's argument appears to lie in its insistence that the direct consequences of the accident are limited to the immediate ones. When hurt the plaintiff had a spinal malformation and chronic bronchitis. In the accident four ribs were broken; One of which pierced a lung. Recovery from the fractures and the lung injury did not establish full recovery from the accident. The defendant had in its employ a workman suffering from a physical defect and a chronic ailment. So far as the accident affected them, either in immediate connection or in the course of causative sequences which could be found to have direct, and more than remote, relation to the accident, as connected links in the chain, their disturbance was properly attributable to the accident. It was not necessary that the parts of the body which they involved should receive traumatic injury. If the accident or its direct consequences brought about aggravation of the spinal trouble or a more rapid and progressive activity of the bronchial disease, the disability therefrom ensuing would be directly traceable to the accident.

In another aspect the defendant's position unduly limits the direct effects of the accident. The mind as well as the body may be hurt as the causal outcome of a traumatic injury. If the conditions and progress in the course of recovery affect the mind in such a way as to retard recovery, the resulting extension of the period of disability may be found to be due to the accident. Provided the workman does what he reasonably may to terminate the consequences of an accident, Neault v. Parker-Young Company, 86 N.H. 231, 166 A. 289, the result of mental disturbance in slowing the progress of recovery may fairly be proximate in character. Short of definite mental derangement requiring treatment by alienists, a mental state calling for psychiatric service is pathological. It is comparable, if not allied, with a neurotic disorder. Discouragement, depression, and defeat produced by the aftermath of an accident and in turn productive of further aftermath may serve as a part of the consequential process. Loss of work and of bodily strength and activity due to an accident may produce depression or melancholy which, though mild in form, may prolong the loss. The extent, nature, and effect of the mental hurt are all inquiries of fact.

The court found that at a time about a year after the accident, "as a result of the accident, he [the plaintiff] has lost his grip on life and needs psychiatric treatment. * * * He complains of back pains * * * probably due to his general run-down condition which is due in part to the accident."

The defendant's medical expert testified that in his opinion some of the plaintiff's condition was due to his injury, that some soreness from the broken ribs persisted and greatly worried him, and that he was suffering from "a mental condition to a large extent which started at the time of the accident," so as to account for his feelings of weakness and loss of strength whenever he tried to do any work. He further testified that the plaintiff's complaints of backache were due to the long time he had been out of work, his apprehensions about himself, the long period of sitting around and disuse of his back muscles, so that they had become soft and weak, and so that he needed some exercise and some encouragement, and ought to have his general condition built up.

This evidence, together with that tending to show that before the accident the plaintiff worked steadily while unable to work after it except to a negligible extent, that he ran down in general health after the accident, losing fifteen pounds in weight and becoming anaemic, that he had severe back pains and that his complaints were not of pretended suffering, is sufficient to support the findings. Although the plaintiff's back was not hurt in the accident, it is reasonable to infer that inactivity due to the accident brought about some condition in connection with his spinal deformity which caused suffering from it, and although his chronic bronchitis was progressive as time went on, it is a fair deduction that the accident developed and increased the speed of its progress.

These considerations dispose adversely of many of the defendant's exceptions, including those to the denial of the motion to dismiss and to the findings which have been stated. The findings were reasonable inferences, though contrary ones may also have been. Boucher v. Larochelle, 74 N.H. 433, 68 A. 870, 15 L.R.A.,N.S., 416.

With reference to the...