Title: Pittman v. City Stores, Inc.

State: tennessee

Issuer: Tennessee Supreme Court

Document:

325 S.W.2d 249 (1959) Mrs. James PITTMAN v. CITY STORES, INC., D/B/A B. Lowensteins Bros., and New Amsterdam Casualty Co. Supreme Court of Tennessee. March 12, 1959. Rehearing Denied May 1, 1959. William A. McTighe, Memphis, for petitioner-appellant. McDonald, Kuhn, McDonald & Crenshaw, Memphis, for respondents-appellees. *250 NEIL, Chief Justice. This is a workmen's compensation case, and the only question at issue is whether or not the petitioner's suit is barred by the statute of limitations of one year as provided by our Workmen's Compensation Act, T.C.A. §§ 50-1003, 50-1017. The Chancellor sustained a special plea of this statute, resulting in this appeal. The facts and circumstances which gave rise to the cause of action are not in dispute. It is therefore important that we state the material evidence and also the nature of the injury sustained by the petitioner. The accident occurred on December 18, 1954, while the petitioner, Mrs. Pittman, was at work as a saleslady for the defendant. The defendant's store is known as Lowensteins, although it is incorporated under the name of "City Stores, Inc." Mrs. Pittman was employed to work during the Christmas Holidays in 1954, at which time she was 18 years of age and was married. No one can doubt the truthfulness of her testimony. But the reason for her failure to sue for her injury under the Workmen's Compensation Act until July 11, 1958, 3 ½ years after the accident, is open to serious dispute. It conclusively appears that the petitioner saw a doctor the day following the accident. She says she saw him "the very next day". She described the accident and the effect of it, as follows: She testified that she saw Dr. Goldberg a number of times during 1954 and 1956, "but not for my head". Continuing she says: We reach the definite conclusion from Mrs. Pittman's testimony that her condition grew progressively worse from the *251 day of the accident until this suit was instituted 3 ½ years thereafter, although there were intervals when she may have been more or less free from pain. Her sole reason for not instituting a suit against the defendant sooner appears in the following questions and answers: By consent of counsel a statement by Dr. Goldberg was read into the record. We quote it in full, as follows: The testimony of Mrs. Pittman and the foregoing statement by Dr. Goldberg was all the evidence in the case. There was no evidence of any injury prior or subsequent to the accident complained of. The Chancellor sustained the defendant's plea in abatement, and we now have the case under the following assignments of error: The cases relied on by counsel for Mrs. Pittman are Ogle v. Tennessee Eastman Corp., 185 Tenn. 527, 206 S.W.2d 909; and Griffitts v. Humphrey, 199 Tenn. 528, 288 S.W.2d 1. The sole question involved on this appeal is the time when the statute of limitations is tolled. Is it tolled one year from the date of the accident, which was December 18, 1954, or one year from the date of the injury, which, according to the appellant's insistence, was much more than one year after the accident, viz three or three and one half years thereafter? The statute of limitations which applies to the case at bar is quoted and construed by us in Ogle v. Tennessee Eastman Corp., and Griffitts v. Humphrey, supra, and need not be repeated in this opinion. Both cases were correctly decided on the facts. The words "accident" and "injury" are not synonymous. In numerous cases, which require no special reference, an accident may appear to be trivial when it occurs, in that the employee apparently experiences no injury whatever, or nothing to indicate at the time that a partial or permanent injury had resulted from the accident. This was substantially true in the Ogle case. His eyes were irritated and inflamed by the explosion of poison gases. The company doctor treated him until "he was apparently fully recovered." But an eye specialist discovered more than a year after the accident and injury, that he had lost the sight of his eye. The plea of the statute of limitations was overruled on the ground that it was tolled as of the time when the specialist discovered that Ogle had lost his eye. In the Griffitts case Mr. Justice Burnett reviews a number of decisions by this Court relating to the tolling of the statute in compensation cases. He makes special reference to McBrayer v. Dixie Mercerizing Co., 176 Tenn. 560, 144 S.W.2d 764; and Burcham v. Carbide & Carbon Chemicals Corp., 188 Tenn. 592, 221 S.W.2d 888. The principle is reaffirmed that the statute is tolled as of the date of the known disability and that it results from the accident. The case now before us differs somewhat from the facts reviewed by Mr. Justice Burnett in the Griffitts case. We think the opinion of the Court in Bradford v. Dixie Mercerizing Co., 199 Tenn. 170, 285 S.W.2d 136, is applicable here. Another case more nearly in point is Netherland v. Mead Corp., 170 Tenn. 520, 98 S.W.2d 76, although in this case the company doctor had advised the employee that his injury was more or less trivial. Contention was made that the doctor's advise misled the petitioner and for this reason the tolling of the statute was postponed beyond the statutory period of one year. The ruling of the Chancellor denying compensation was sustained. Considering the entire testimony in this case, and accrediting it in the light most favorable to the employee, we think it *253 would be both unwise and illogical and far beyond the purview of the statute for us to hold that the tolling of the statute of limitations is suspended pending an examination and final report by medical experts as to the percentage of the injured employee's disability. The assignment of error is overruled, and the judgment of the Chancellor is affirmed.