Williamson v. Travelers Insurance Company
| Decision Date | 23 January 1957 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 5628. |
| Citation | 147 F. Supp. 781 |
| Parties | Dan M. WILLIAMSON v. TRAVELERS INSURANCE COMPANY. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Louisiana |
Harry V. Booth, and John R. Pleasant, Booth, Lockard, Jack & Pleasant, Shreveport, La., for plaintiff.
John C. Theus, Theus, Grisham, Davis & Leigh, Monroe, La., for defendant.
Filed in the State Court, and removed here1 by defendant on grounds of diversity of citizenship,2 with more than $3,000 being in controversy,3 the action is for weekly benefits of $30 each during plaintiff's alleged disability, not to exceed 400 weeks, under the Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Law, LSA-R. S. 23:1021 et seq.
The background facts are not in serious dispute, the single issue being whether plaintiff's present total disability, which is practically conceded and is presumably permanent, is the result of a compensable accidental injury, as he contends, or of pre-existing disease, as defendant urges.
On September 20, 1955, plaintiff was 63 years of age, having been born in April, 1892. There is no question but that he had a condition of osteoarthritis in his back and hips on and prior to that date. However, he had not suffered any disability from this. He had been working regularly since November, 1952, for defendant's insured, Remington Rand, Inc., operator of the Louisiana Ordnance Plant in Webster Parish, Louisiana, his weekly wage being $74. His duties were those of a railroad car-inspector, requiring him to inspect fairly large numbers of freight cars used in transporting raw materials into the plant, and finished products from the plant. On the usual work day, he inspected an average of approximately 30 cars. In doing so, he was required to walk along railroad sidings where the cars were spotted; he would stoop or squat, or crawl beneath the cars, in order to check the brakes, running gear, floor decking, etc.; he would climb the steel ladders affixed to the cars to inspect the roofs; and he also would inspect their interiors. In order to perform this latter duty, he carried with him a steel crow-bar approximately three feet long, to be used in opening car doors, and a small portable ladder about five or six feet in length, upon which he would climb to the car floors. Approximately 80 to 90 per cent of all freight car doors were hard to open, requiring heavy exertion, it sometimes being necessary that plaintiff and his assistant enlist the help of other men in order to get them open.
On September 20, 1955, while performing his regular duties in the course and scope of his employment, plaintiff had inspected the inside of a freight car and, while checking a possible defect in its floor decking, he accidentally fell backward from the car floor to the ground, a distance of four to five feet, landing upon his hips and lower back, the jar of the fall being hard enough to break the artificial dentures he was wearing in his mouth. He was somewhat stunned, and immediately felt a marked degree of pain in his back, hips and right leg, with numbness and weakness in that extremity. After lying on the ground for several minutes, he succeeded in lifting himself to his feet and managed to continue his duties, with difficulty, until his regular hours of work for that day came to an end. There were no witnesses to the accident, but he immediately reported it to Mr. Leon Bordelon, one of his superiors in the Railroad Department, showing him his broken dentures, and on the next day reported it to his immediate supervisor, Mr. R. W. Kelly. Defendant does not seriously dispute that the accident actually occurred as we have described it; and paid plaintiff compensation at the rate of $30 per week, until June 18, 1956.
Thinking that he perhaps had not been injured seriously, and that the immediate pain and disability would subside by the next day, he went home, returning to the job on September 21. At that time, he found he was in too much pain to continue, so then reported to the plant first-aid station, where he was examined by Dr. S. E. Potts, the plant physician. Neither side called Dr. Potts to testify in the case. He apparently administered heat or diathermy treatment to plaintiff, who then went to his family physician, Dr. B. L. Cook, of Minden, Louisiana.
Dr. Cook immediately placed plaintiff in the Minden Sanitarium, where he was put in traction and given various treatments for a period of approximately six days, following which he was allowed to return to his home. Having shown no improvement, and, in fact, having grown worse, Dr. Cook sent him to Shreveport where, on October 5, 1955, he was examined by an orthopedist, Dr. Ford J. MacPherson. That doctor placed him in a Shreveport hospital where he remained under treatment until November 4, 1955.
Dr. MacPherson's findings at his first examination are epitomized by the following extract from his testimony:
"The clinical impression that was gained in this patient was that he had sustained an acute tearing injury to the soft tissue structures around the bones of his low back, in an old man with advanced arthritic changes and structural defects."
Dr. MacPherson again examined him at his office on November 4, 1955, and dismissed him to return to his previous occupation on or about November 7. At that time, the doctor did not believe plaintiff would have any permanent partial disability. He reported this to defendant. However, when plaintiff went back to the Ordnance Plant on November 7 and Dr. Potts found he still was wearing a back brace, fitted for him upon Dr. MacPherson's orders, he would not permit him to return to work, telling him to come back in thirty days. Meantime, plaintiff returned to Dr. Cook, who has continued to treat him as an out-patient since that time.
Meanwhile, on October 10, 1955, while plaintiff was confined in the Shreveport hospital, he suffered an attack of auricular fibrillation, which in lay language means that his pulse, or heart beat, was quite rapid and irregular, although his blood pressure was within normal limits for a man of his age. At that time he was examined by Dr. Robert P. Bays, an internist, who found that he probably had an arteriosclerotic heart condition, of which the irregular pulse was a temporary manifestation. The latter condition cleared up within a relatively short time, and had disappeared entirely before plaintiff was released from the hospital.
Dr. Cook is of the opinion, after having examined and treated plaintiff over a substantial period of time, that, irrespective of the heart condition, plaintiff is totally and permanently disabled as the result of trauma sustained by him in the accident of September 20, 1955, which aggravated or excited the pre-existing condition of osteoarthritis in plaintiff's back and hips. The evidence conclusively shows that this had not caused him any pain or disability prior to the date of the accident.
Dr. MacPherson re-examined plaintiff on December 4, 1956. He testified that, while he previously had discharged plaintiff in November, 1955, as then being able to return to work, he has changed his views and now is of the opinion that plaintiff is...
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