Wilhelm v. Workmen's Compensation Appeals Bd.
| Decision Date | 05 October 1967 |
| Citation | 62 Cal.Rptr. 829,255 Cal.App.2d 30 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Mary L. WILHELM, Petitioner, v. WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION APPEALS BOARD of the State of California, Bassett Unified School District and State Compensation Insurance Fund, Respondents. Civ. 31872. |
Metcalf & Silver, Santa Ana, and Leslie C. Burg, Beverly Hills, for petitioner.
Everett A. Corten, San Francisco, Edward A. Sarkisian and Nathan Mudge, Los Angeles, for respondent Appeals Board.
T. Groezinger, Loton Wells, and F. G. Loughrey, San Francisco, for respondent State Compensation Ins. Fund.
*
In this proceeding an applicant for workmen's compensation seeks review and annulment of an order of the Workmen's Compensation Appeals Board which denied her claim and allowed only reimbursement of medical-legal costs.
Applicant, a public health nurse, was employed as a school nurse by the Bassett Unified School District. In her application for workmen's compensation she alleged that she suffered disability as the result of contracting herbes zoster through exposure to chickenpox in the course of employment from September 13, 1965, to October 8, 1965. The referee found to this effect and awarded compensation. The appeals board granted respondents' petition for reconsideration, vacated the findings and award, and issued the order denying benefits (except for the reimbursement of medical-legal costs) based on a finding that applicant did not sustain industrial injury.
The applicant contends that, in finding that the applicant did not sustain an industrial injury, the board disregarded the substantial evidence to the contrary. In its opinion and order granting reconsideration the board stated that there is merit in defendants' contention 'that there is no evidence of exposure of the applicant to an infectious or contagious disease.' In answer to the petition before us the board contends that there is some evidence to support that finding. We do not reach the question of the sufficiency of the evidence. For the reason set forth below we have concluded that the appeals board has not made a complete examination of the record and, therefore, its findings and order must be annulled and the matter remanded for further proceedings.
In its decision after reconsideration the appeals board, pursuant to Labor Code, section 5908.5, did not comment on the evidence but stated as the reason for its decision 1 that it found merit in the contention of respondents 'that there is no evidence of exposure of the applicant to an infectious or contagious disease.' Our review of the record shows that there is substantial evidence on this issue and no reason appears to justify its exclusion from consideration.
There is uncontradicted medical evidence from more than one source to the effect that herpes zoster and chickenpox are infectious diseases communicable by direct contact and that they occur from exposure to the same virus or a virus so similar that they can be crossinfected. Applicant testified that it was her duty as school nurse to observe and care for students who were ill or injured and it was her responsibility to exclude from classes those whom she found to have symptoms of communicable diseases. As a registered nurse with bachelor or science and master of arts degrees and a certificate in public health nursing, she was trained for this work and had been employed by the school district in the performance of such work for more than nine years. She testified that during the period alleged in her claim she came in contact with some 18 to 20 students at six different schools who had skin eruptions which in her opinion were symptions of chickenpox. She testified to the identifying characteristics of chickenpox and distinguished them from those of other conditions such as hives, flea bites, bedbug bites, impetigo, and poison ivy and poison oak. In the course of her testimony she described the symptoms exhibited by one child whom she observed on September 13 1965. Dr. Ascher, a qualified doctor of medicine, was...
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