Case ID: so2d_381/html/0332-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      ROBERT P. SMITH, Jr., Judge. SHIVERS, Judge,", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Richard J. PARELLA, Jr., Appellant, v. DAVID JONES PLUMBING, INC., and Fireman’s Fund American Insurance Co., Appellees.
    No. SS-306.
    District Court of Appeal of Florida, First District.
    March 20, 1980.
    Michael A. Edwards, West Palm Beach, for appellant.
    Eugene N. Betts, Fort Lauderdale, for appellees.
   ROBERT P. SMITH, Jr., Judge.

Parella appeals from an order denying him workers’ compensation benefits on his claim resulting from a heart attack. The central issue tried by the deputy commissioner, and resolved against Parella, was whether the incident resulted from “unusual strain or over-exertion not routine” to Parella’s work. Victor Wine & Liquor, Inc. v. Beasley, 141 So.2d 581, 589 (Fla.1961). While this record contains substantial competent evidence that the heart attack was not causally related to Parella’s work, that evidence is the testimony of an expert medical witness whose opinion was influenced in part by hospital records and other written material which came into the carrier’s possession, which was ordered produced for inspection by Parella’s counsel, and which nevertheless were not produced as ordered. Counsel’s unfamiliarity with the materials relied upon by the witness hampered effective cross-examination of the witness on whose testimony the order necessarily depends. The order will be reversed and the case remanded for further consideration after Parella’s counsel has been afforded an opportunity to examine the records and cross-examine the witness. Cf. Polk County Road Dept. v. Goodwin, IRC Order 2-2976 (June 11, 1976).

REVERSED and REMANDED.

LARRY G. SMITH, J., concurs.

SHIVERS, J., specially concurs.

SHIVERS, Judge,

specially concurring.

I concur in the reversal and remand. The carrier was ordered to produce the records and material and did not do so. Parella’s counsel has a right to peruse these so he may cross-examine.

The case of Victor Wine & Liquor, Inc. v. Beasley, 141 So.2d 581, 589 (Fla.1961) indicates that in order for a heart attack such as the one involved in this case to be com-pensable it must (1) be causally related to the employment and (2) result from an unusual strain or overexertion not routine to employment. It is clear to me that preceding his heart attack claimant experienced “unusual strain or overexertion not routine” to his work as required by Victor Wine. Shortly before sustaining his heart attack, the claimant, without assistance, carried two water heaters up a flight of stairs. The evidence revealed that not only had the claimant never been required to perform such strenuous work, but that it was extremely rare for any employee to move the water heaters without assistance.