White v. Monmouth Canning Co.

• Decision Date: 21 April 1967
• Citation: 228 A.2d 795
• Parties: Aubrey O. WHITE v. MONMOUTH CANNING COMPANY and/or Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 795

228 A.2d 795

Aubrey O. WHITE v. MONMOUTH CANNING COMPANY and/or Lumbermens Mutual Casualty Co.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

April 21, 1967.

Fred E. Hanscom, Rumford, for plaintiff.

Clement F. Richardson, Portland, for defendant.

Before WILLIAMSON, C. J., and WEBBER, TAPLEY, MARDEN, RUDMAN and DUFRESNE, JJ.

DUFRESNE, Justice.

This is an appeal by the defendant employer, Monmouth Canning Company, from a pro forma decree of the Superior Court implementing the Industrial Accident Commission's award of compensation to the plaintiff employee at the rate of $30.86 per week from July 31, 1963 to continue until the decree is nullified by the Commission or by agreement. The issue is whether or not the Industrial Accident Commission erred as a matter of law in finding (1) that the plaintiff employee suffered a personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, (2) that he was totally incapacitated as a result of said injury and (3) that he was entitled to compensation from July 31, 1963 at the rate of $30.86 per week until the decree be nullified by the Commission or by agreement.

In his petition for an award of such compensation as he may be entitled to, the plaintiff alleged that on the 28th day of July, 1963 while working as a 'bean picker in field' in the employ of Monmouth Canning Co. at Canton, he received a personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, of which the employer had due knowledge or notice, and more specifically that said accident happened as follows:

'While bagging beans riding on mechanical bean picker owned by Monmouth Canning Co. The tractor hauling the been picker stopped and turned suddenly. I was suddenly swung and twisted although I did not fall from the picker, but my back was twisted and vertebra dislocated.' He further stated therein that the accident resulted in an injury as follows:

'Strained back and dislocated vertebra. Am still wearing a brace.'

The Commissioner of the Industrial Accident Commission whose decision the pro forma decree of the Superior Court carried out made the following contested findings:

(1) 'The Commissioner hearing this case finds as a fact from the foregoing testimony on which there is no material deviation from the employee's story as told to the several of the hearing and as told to the several doctors who examined him, that he did suffer a personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, and that this injury was in the area described by the employee.'

(2) 'The Commissioner hearing this case is persuaded by the employee's story and the medical testimony given by his doctor who had the opportunity to view the condition of the patient, and finds that the employee was totally incapacitated for work from the time he stopped work until the final hearing.'

A perusal of the whole evidence justifies the Commissioner's evaluation to the effect that there was no material deviation in the plaintiff's history of the accident and his finding that the plaintiff suffered a personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment stands practically undisputed in the evidence. Revised Statutes, 1954, c. 31, § 37, as amended, now 39 M.R.S.A. § 99, provides in part that a decision of the Commissioner, in the absence of fraud, shall be final upon all questions of fact. The question on appeal is whether the decision of the Commission rests on some legally competent and probative evidence and is not merely the result of speculation, conjecture or guesswork. Bradbury v. General Foods Corporation, (1966) Me., 218 A.2d 673; Crowley's Case, (1931) 130 Me. 1, 153 A. 184; Mailman's Case, (1919) 118 Me. 172, 106 A. 606.

The facts may be succinctly stated as follows. On July 28, 1963, at about 10:30 a. m. the plaintiff while riding on a bean picker attached to a tractor lost his balance and fell against the machine when the tractor made a sharp turn and sudden stop, twisting his back in the process. Although he experienced severe pain, he continued working that day and the following Monday. On Tuesday, he quit work at about 2:00 p. m. because his side pained him so he could not stand it any longer. He was hospitalized for 14 days by Doctor Charles M. Smith, his attending physician who diagnosed his ailment as acute muscular strain right sacroiliac region, with degenerative arthritis of lumbosacral spine and aggravation of an inguinal nerve neuritis. Because of the inguinal nerve neuritis, Dr. Smith injected him in tne right groin to relieve the pain in that region. His back however remained about the same. After two weeks additional stay at home with bed rest and heat treatment, plaintiff experienced more intense pain in his back and especially in the lower fibres of the lumbar muscle just above the sacroiliac joint and in the right gluteus medius and also again in the region of the plaintiff's right herniorrhaphy scar; because of this recurrence of pain, Dr. Smith had his patient readmitted to the hospital for pelvic traction treatments on August 28, 1963, and this second hospitalization ended on September 11, 1963, when the plaintiff was informed that he should not go back to work, that he was not to do any forward flexing or lifting. An operation to expose the ilioinguinal nerve and perform a neurectomy was carried out on February 26, 1964, but a neuroma was not identified. Doctor John P. Greene, an orthopedic surgeon, examined the plaintiff on August 13, 1963, July 7, 1964 and April 5, 1965. He confirmed that the plaintiff had suffered a servere strain of his lower lumbar muscles on his right side and of his right buttock muscles, specifically the gluteus maximus and that he had over 50% limitation of motion in all directions. He testified on cross-examination that plaintiff's neurological complaints are probably caused because of his strain to his back, as they are quite common with a back strain either acute or chronic, even though they are not necessarily objective. The doctor admitted that plaintiff's case was unusual. The defendant's medical evidence tended to prove that the plaintiff's disability on account of his accident should have terminated according to one doctor within some twelve weeks and according to the other within a week or two. Plaintiff's complaints have consistently supported a severe injury. He stated that he cannot lie flat on his back or on his right side because of the severity of his back pain, and that he sleeps only an average of 2 to 3 hours each night. He complained of a generalized numbness of his right leg and foot.

The Commissioner was satisfied that the plaintiff did suffer a personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, and this finding is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence. Counsel for the defendant does not seriously dispute the correctness of such finding, but rather directs his legal attack upon the Commissioner's lack of specificity as tot he nature of the injury resulting from the accident. He argues that the evidence shows that the plaintiff was suffering from a back strain as well as from an inguinal nerve neuritis, and that the Commissioner should have specified whether the plaintiff was incapacitated from either or both and whether either or both were the result of the accident. He does assert that if the Commissioner had ascribed plaintiff's condition solely to the inguinal nerve neuritis and had found the same compensable, then his finding of causal relation between the accident and the injury would rest on very little medical support to establish it.

It Commissioner's finding is not ambiguous. He concluded that 'this injury was in the area decribed by the employee.' In his petition, the plaintiff described his injury in the following terms: 'my back was twisted and vertebra dislocated'; and he stated that the accident resulted in an injury as follows: 'strained back and dislocated vertebra. Am still wearing a brace.' Plaintiff did not claim, nor even suggest, that his inguinal condition was in any way causally related to the accident. Under Revised Statutes, 1954, c. 31, § 32, as amended, now 39 M.R.S.A. § 94, the petition for award of compensation must contain certain essential allegations such as the names and residences of the parties, the facts relating to the employment at the time of the accident, the time, place and cause of the accident, the knowledge of the employer or notice of the occurrence thereof, the character and extent of the injury and the claims of the petitioner with reference thereto; together with such other facts as may be necessary and proper for the determination of the rights of the petitioner relative to said claims. Our Court has taken cognizance of the statutory requirement. See, Morin's Case, 122 Me 338, 120 A. 44; Clark's Case, 120 Me. 133, 113 A. 51; Maxwell's Case, 119 Me. 504, 111 A. 849. The Commissioner's finding must be read in the light of the petition and must be interpreted to mean that the personal injury suffered by the employee was in the area of the back as described by him in his petition and in the evidence. Although it would be more desirable that the findings of the Commissioner be couched in more precise and direct language, nevertheless this shortcoming in the instant case vanishes readily upon the reader's retrospection of the plaintiff's petition.

The defendant next claims that it was error for the Commissioner to find that the plaintiff was totally incapacitated as a result of the injury received in the accident. The employer bases this claim on the fact that, in addition to its own medical evidence, Dr. Smith, plaintiff's attending physician, did tell the plaintiff in November, 1963, to try light work, that he might be able to do light work. The plaintiff however testified that he would have tried doing light work, if the defendant had had any work that he could do, but that upon ascertaining...