Watson v. Melman, Inc.
| Decision Date | 06 November 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 58-450,58-450 |
| Parties | Vennie M. WATSON, Petitioner, v. MELMAN, Inc. and Florida Industrial Commission, Respondents. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Edward Schroll, Miami, for petitioner.
Hill, Welsh, Cornell, Ross & Pyszka, Miami, for Melman, Inc. Burnis T. Coleman and Paul E. Speh, Tallahassee, for Florida Industrial Commission, respondents.
The claimant in a Workmen's Compensation proceeding petitions for certiorari. She complains of an order of the Florida Industrial Commission which set aside the deputy commissioner's order allowing her claim and directed that her claim be denied. The burden of the petition is that the full commission in its order, reversing the order of the deputy commissioner, misapplied section 440.02(19), Fla.Stat., F.S.A. 1 The petition is well founded and the order of the full commission is reversed.
The deputy commissioner made the following findings: While the claimant was working at a sewing machine in her employer's place of business a fellow employee picked up a cardboard spool weighing eight and one-half ounces and tossed it towards the claimant, intending that it should go over her head and into a trash receptacle some fifteen feet away. The edge of the spool struck the claimant immediately behind her ear. Other than a slight discoloration of the skin, no sign was left upon the area where the blow struck.
The deputy commissioner further found:
'That, by reason of the accidental death of her teen-age son by being struck a blow upon his head, an injury of such a nature as the claimant sustained was of sufficient connotation to the claimant to constitute the 'symbolic significance' described by Dr. Gilbert, and that, having been divorced in her later years of life and required to engage in strenuous labor to provide for herself and her daughter, and to thereafter sustain an injury of 'symbolic significance' was sufficient to constitute a significant threat to her financial security as also described by Dr. Gilbert, and that by reason of her industrial accident of May 25, 1956, the claimant, although incurring no organic disability whatsoever, did incur a traumatic neurosis whereby she is now and has been since the aforesaid date temporarily and totally disabled.'
As to this finding the full commission held:
The conclusion reached by the full commission is simply '(S)aid claim should be dismissed, in that fright alone does not constitute an injury by accident.'
There is no doubt that the claimant sustained 'an accident arising out of and in the course of her employment.' The only question is whether compensation is barred by the provisions of section 440.02(19), Fla.Stat., F.S.A.
The full commission placed strong emphasis upon the deputy commissioner's finding of 'no organic disability'. It should be pointed out that the deputy commissioner did not say 'no organic injury'. Disability is defined by the Workmen's Compensation Act:
"Disability' means incapacity because of the injury to earn in the same or any other employment the wages which the employee was receiving at the time of the injury.' (Emphasis added.) Section 440.02(9), Fla.Stat., F.S.A.
Therefore the only significance of the finding of 'no organic disability' is that the claimant was found no to be incapacitated for work by reason of an organic condition. Nevertheless, the commissioner found that she did suffer an injury to her body and that as a direct result...
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Brown v. Winn-Dixie Montgomery, Inc.
...of physical contact are covered injuries under Chapter 440 even where the physical contact is relatively minor. In Watson v. Melman, Inc., 106 So.2d 433 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1958), cert. den. 111 So.2d 40 (Fla.1959), the employee was working at a sewing machine when one of her co-workers tossed a ......
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Younkman v. Waste Collection Services, 90-1411
...the nondisabling physical trauma was a significant causative factor in claimant's ensuing psychiatric impairment. In Watson v. Melman, 106 So.2d 433 (Fla. 3d DCA 1958), claimant was hit in the head with a cardboard spool and thereafter suffered traumatic neurosis. The deputy in that case fo......
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City of Holmes Beach v. Grace
...the fact that the physical injury is relatively minor will not necessarily result in the denial of compensation. Watson v. Melman, Inc., 106 So.2d 433 (Fla.1958), cert. denied, 111 So.2d 40 (Fla.1959), is a good illustration of a case in which the claimant's mental or nervous condition was ......
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Prahl Bros., Inc. v. Phillips
...injury or trauma need not be itself disabling for the ensuing mental or nervous injury to be compensable. See Watson v. Melman Inc., 106 So.2d 433 (Fla. 3d DCA 1958), cert. denied 111 So.2d 40 In Watson the claimant was struck on the head by a cardboard spool; although the blow produced no ......