Case Title: Wilson v. State Ind. Acc. Comm.

Citation: 189 Or. 114, 219 P.2d 138

Docket Number: 

State: oregon

Court: Oregon Supreme Court

Date: 1950-05-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
Affirmed as modified May 23, 1950.
*115 Roy K. Terry, Assistant Attorney General, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the brief were George Neuner, Attorney General, T. Walter Gillard and Ray H. Lafky, Assistant Attorneys General, all of Salem.
Wesley A. Franklin argued the cause for respondent. On the brief were Anderson & Franklin, of Portland.
*116 Before BRAND, Acting Chief Justice, and BELT, ROSSMAN, BAILEY, HAY and LATOURETTE, Justices.
JUDGMENT MODIFIED IN PART AND OTHERWISE AFFIRMED.
LATOURETTE, J.
This is an appeal by the State Industrial Accident Commission from a judgment awarding the plaintiff permanent partial disability because of the loss of the sight of his left eye, occasioned by aggravation. Plaintiff suffered an injury to his left eye on April 24, 1947, while employed, subject to the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act. The plaintiff filed his claim for compensation with the Commission, which claim was approved and allowed, and plaintiff was granted an award for total temporary disability, and thereupon, the Commission closed plaintiff's case on July 24, 1947.
On October 26, 1948, plaintiff filed his petition for increased compensation because of aggravation, claiming an award of permanent partial disability equal to the complete loss of the sight of his left eye, and also an award of permanent partial disability because of chronic pain and nervousness equal to 96 degrees. The Commission denied plaintiff's petition; hence, the appeal to the trial court.
The jury's verdict was for plaintiff for the total loss of the sight of his eye and for pain, headaches and nervousness equal to 20 per cent loss of an arm. A judgment was entered accordingly, from which the Commission appealed.
The Commission moved for a nonsuit and for a directed verdict, the denial of which formed the basis of its Assignments of Error No. I and No. II, which *117 we will treat together. The motion for the directed verdict, following closely in the language of the motion for nonsuit, is as follows:
Under Assignment of Error No. I, it is asserted: "There can be no recovery for the loss of sight of an eye that is already industrially blind." It is argued that the two doctors in the case, Dr. Canfield Beattie, plaintiff's expert witness, and Dr. E. Merle Taylor, defendant's expert and sole witness, both testified that plaintiff was "industrially blind" in his left eye prior to the accident, and, such being the case, it is urged that there could be no aggravation. On the argument, counsel for the Commission, in answer to a question propounded by a member of the court, said: "There is no definition, your Honor, of industrial blindness. It is  it varies in each particular state, there is no degree  it just means that your eye is useless for ordinary industrial purposes."
*118 It is true that both doctors testified that the plaintiff's left eye was industrially blind before the accident, that being their conclusion; however, Dr. Beattie testified as follows:
Plaintiff himself testified as follows:
Let us now look to the law on the question. Under the Workmen's Compensation Act of this state, an injured workman is compensated for the total loss of the sight of an eye without regard to whether or not the eye was perfect prior to the accident. Section 102-1760, O.C.L.A. defines permanent partial disability as "* * * the loss of one eye * * *", and the workman under the Act is awarded 80 degrees "for the permanent and complete loss of the sight of one eye."
Only one Oregon case has been cited which has any particular bearing on the subject at hand, and that is Chebot v. State Industrial Accident Commission, *120 106 Or. 660, 212 P. 792. In that case, the workman lost the sight of an eye in an accident, and as a result thereof, his other eye became weak and inflamed, and as claimed by him, causing him to become incapacitated for performing any useful work or occupation. He contended that he was entitled under the Act to be awarded for the permanent and complete loss of the sight of his other eye. The evidence disclosed that he had some use of the remaining eye. The Commission asserted in that case that since plaintiff had some sight left in his eye, he should be compensated on the basis of a partial loss of the sight of the eye. The court upheld the Commission's position and said:
The court further said:
The Commission cites five cases from other jurisdictions to sustain its theory. We have read all of them and find that they are not applicable to the case at bar as the facts in four of these cases were that prior to the accidents the claimants involved had no practical use of their eyes. The fifth case cited, Przekop *121 v. Ramapo Ajax Corporation et al., 214 App. Div. 512, 212 N.Y.S. 426, was based on a statute which defined the loss of binocular vision. On the other hand, Oregon has no such statute. No other Oregon case cited or found by our search touches on the point in question; however, there are authorities from other jurisdictions bearing on this question which are collected in the annotations in 73 A.L.R. 706; 99 A.L.R. 1498; 142 A.L.R. 822.
In the case of Eagle-Picher Mining & Smelting Co. v. Murphy, 169 Okla. 180, 35 P. (2d) 952, we find that Oklahoma has a statute similar to the Oregon statute in regard to the partial loss of vision, and it was there held that where, prior to the injury, the claimant had partial loss of vision of the eye but there was vision sufficient to the satisfactory performance of labor, the claimant would be entitled to an award for loss of an eye. In Wildman v. Pennsylvania Department of Highways et al., 157 Pa. Super. 301, 43 A. (2d) 342, the court, in dealing with a question quite similar to the one involved in this case held that it was not a question whether or not plaintiff was industrially blind before the accident, or had no reading vision prior to the accident, but whether he had lost the use of the eye for all practical purposes. See Diaz v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 155 Pa. Super. 177, 38 A. (2d) 387.
In the case of Ames v. Sanitary District No. 1 of Lancaster County, 140 Neb. 879, 2 N.W. (2d) 530, a case where there was a complete loss of sight, the court held that an award was not based upon the amount of vision prior to the accident and said:
The court further refers to a New York case as follows:
See Schneider on Workmen's Compensation, § 409.
1. There is evidence in the instant case that claimant had sight in his left eye for all practical purposes, and as said by Dr. Beattie: "It is considered useful vision. It is not a vision that you could do a job with that *123 required any skill or is difficult, but it is a very useful vision."
The evidence is devoid of claimant's ever having received compensation for the loss of partial vision of his eye, and in this case, the jury having found that claimant had lost the entire sight of his eye, claimant would be entitled to an award by the Commission of 100 per cent.
2, 3. Defendant's second proposition is that there can be no recovery for chronic pain and nervousness as such in industrial accident cases. In the case of Lindeman v. State Industrial Accident Commission, 183 Or. 245, 250, 192 P. (2d) 732, this court, in analyzing the Workmen's Compensation Act involved, stated as follows:
It is not the intention of the law to compensate for pain, suffering or nervousness in and of themselves, but the disabling effects of such may be considered in determining the disabling effect of any particular injury. The court therefore erred in submitting this question to the jury.
4-6. The third point raised by defendant is that the court erred in instructing the jury "* * * that the testimony of experts is to be received and considered with narrow scrutiny and with much caution." The exception taken at the trial is as follows: "I wish to add a further exception to your Honor's ruling as to expert witnesses, because that was not called for, there was an expert witness on both sides." It has been held by this court many times that to enable one to take advantage of error in the giving of instructions, the party must point out specifically the grounds of his exception. Had defendant in this case excepted to such instruction on the ground that the court was invading the province of the jury, since the credibility of witnesses is exclusively a jury question, such an exception would have been well taken. The trial court has no business commenting on the evidence, and we disapprove of such practices; however, the exception taken was not sufficient to call to the court's attention the point now raised.
7. The next point raised by defendant is that the court erred in not instructing the jury by defining the meaning of "aggravation." Defendant did not submit to the court an instruction on this matter and can not now complain.
*125 There are several other assignments of error set out in the brief but not argued by the Commission. We have considered these assignments and find that they are without merit and, therefore, will not be discussed.
The judgment of the lower court will be modified to the extent that the award for pain, headaches and nervousness will be eliminated, and the judgment otherwise will be affirmed.