Case Name: Anna Mae LEWIS, Plaintiff-Appellee-Relator, v. The ST. CHARLES PARISH HOSPITAL SERVICE DISTRICT d/b/a the St. Charles Hospital and Argonaut-Southwest Insurance Company, Defendants-Appellants-Respondents
Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1976-09-23
Citations: 337 So. 2d 1137
Docket Number: No. 57470
Parties: Anna Mae LEWIS, Plaintiff-Appellee-Relator, v. The ST. CHARLES PARISH HOSPITAL SERVICE DISTRICT d/b/a the St. Charles Hospital and Argonaut-Southwest Insurance Company, Defendants-Appellants-Respondents.
Judges: SUMMERS, J., dissents and assigns written reasons.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 337
Pages: 1137–1145

Head Matter:
Anna Mae LEWIS, Plaintiff-Appellee-Relator, v. The ST. CHARLES PARISH HOSPITAL SERVICE DISTRICT d/b/a the St. Charles Hospital and Argonaut-Southwest Insurance Company, Defendants-Appellants-Respondents.
No. 57470.
Supreme Court of Louisiana.
Sept. 23, 1976.
Rehearing Denied Oct. 15, 1976.
Daniel E. Becnel, Jr., Reserve, for plaintiff-applicant.
Charles Hanemann, Henderson, Hane-mann & Morris, Houma, for defendants-respondents.

Opinion:
TATE, Justice.
This is a workmen's compensation suit. The trial court held that the plaintiff was totally disabled for purposes of the workmen's compensation act; but, on appeal, the court of appeal held her to be only partially disabled and, accordingly, reduced her compensation benefits. 323 So.2d 842 (La.App. 4th Cir., 1975). We granted certiorari, 326 So.2d 377 (La.1976), because we doubted the correctness of this last conclusion.
Legal Principles Applicable
Within the meaning of the compensation act in effect at the time of the present injury, an unskilled common laborer, such as is the plaintiff, is considered permanently and totally disabled, La.R.S. 23:1221(2) (1968), "if the injury has substantially decreased his ability to compete with ablebod-ied workers in the flexible general labor market." Ball v. American Marine Corp., 245 La. 515, 159 So.2d 138 (1963); Malone, Louisiana Workmen's Compensation Law, Section 275 (1951; 1964 Supplement).
On the other hand, if the residual of the accident does not substantially handicap the worker in securing employment, then an award for partial disability, La.R.S. 23:1221(3) (1950), may be appropriate where the residual results in disability to perform only some of the duties in which he was customarily engaged when injured. Blanchard v. Pittsburgh-Des Moine Steel Co., 223 La. 577, 66 So.2d 342 (1953); Morgan v. American Bitumuls Co., 217 La. 968, 47 So.2d 739 (1950); Malone, Section 278.
Facts
As found by both trial and intermediate courts, the preponderance of the evidence without substantial dispute shows:
Mrs. Lewis, age 25, was employed as a maid in the housekeeping department of the defendant hospital. Her duties involved regular exposure to a detergent germicide containing a phenolic chemical. As a result, the back and palms of her hands and fingers suffered extensive loss of pigment (75% of her right hand and 50% of her left hand).
Due to the residual sensitized condition of her hands, the plaintiff is unable to be employed in work involving exposure to phenol compounds or to sunlight. The medical evidence shows that this inability, resulting from the physical residual of the accident, will indefinitely continue. The plaintiff's condition is a relatively rare result of the use of phenol compounds, arising from some individual characteristic of the plaintiff's skin found in few people.
Further, as a residual of the injury, the plaintiff, a black woman, is left with severely discolored, diseased-appearing hands mottled with irregular white blotches over much of their surface. The disfiguring residual is especially noticeable (and revul-sively so) in a person of the black race, such as is the petitioner.
The skin condition also prevents outside work involving exposure to sunlight, since by reason of the loss of pigment the skin is unprotected and will blister. However, these results of exposure to sunlight may be avoided by wearing gloves and by use of heavy sunscreen applications.
At the time of trial, about a year after full manifestation of the loss of pigment, the specialist for the defendant testified that some regeneration had occurred. The preponderance of the medical evidence, elicited from the specialists testifying on the plaintiff's behalf, is that substantial improvement of the plaintiff's condition is problematical, if not unlikely.
Legal Disability
The court of appeal differed from the trial court in its appreciation of the legal consequences of these virtually undisputed facts.
The court of appeal held the plaintiff to be only partially disabled. It relied upon the plaintiff's physical ability to do all work not involving exposure to regular contact with phenolic cleaning compounds, and it felt that the record did not show any actual limitation of employment opportunities because of the cosmetic effect of the depig-mentation.
On the contrary, however, we think that the trial court correctly held that, by reason of the work residual, the plaintiff suffered a substantial handicap in securing employment opportunities available, to black females in the rural area of the claimant's work injury °and residence.
The record indicates that phenol compounds are a component of most popular household disinfectants in common use, and also in almost all detergents and disinfectants widely used in industrial or commercial establishments in connection with routine cleaning. Almost without contradiction, the record indicates that the plaintiff by reason of the work injury residence cannot accept employment in any household, commercial, or industrial employment involving exposure to these commonly and widely used detergents and disinfectants.
As the trial court noted: The plaintiff's "capacity to earn money on the open job market has diminished. . . The plaintiff is in a similar circumstance as the biblical characters who had leprosy. She becomes an outcast in her world of work. The test of whether the injury has substantially decreased the worker's ability to compete with able bodied workers in a flexible general labor market is met. (Ball v. American Marine Corporation, [245 La. 515], 159 So.2d 138 (1963). This court is of the opinion that the facts require a decision of total and permanent disability and will so rule."
As we noted in Futrell v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Company, 276 So.2d 271, 274 (La.1973), " 'The law fixes disability in terms of loss of earning capacity, which includes the extent of the physiological impairment as only one factor. The function of the judge is much broader than that of the medical man, for loss of earning capacity, which is the eventual touchstone of all legal definitions of disability, can be determined only by reference to the state of the labor market, hiring practices, the humanity of obliging a man to work in pain, and other broad policy considerations which the physician is not equipped nor authorized to evaluate.' "
In accord with these accepted criteria of disability, the trial court properly took into account that employment opportunities for untrained black females in the rural area of her work-injury and residence are for the most part limited to housekeeping and service occupations and employment, much of it requiring the prohibited exposure to commonly used detergents and disinfectants.
The trial court, which (unlike the appellate courts) physically observed the condition of the plaintiff's hands, properly also considered the narrowing of employment opportunities that must reasonably result from observation by the small-enterprise proprietor or the housewife (the usual employers in the labor market open to the plaintiff) of the disfigured and diseased-appearing condition of the plaintiff's hands, as well as her lack of qualifications for other employment not involving the physical and cosmetic handicaps noted.
For these reasons, we do not find persuasive the suggestions of alternative possible employments suggested by defense counsel in brief. These suggested employments are: in a cafe, a restaurant, a daycare center, a laundry, a hardware store, a gas station, a grocery store, a five-and-ten-cent store, or as a seamstress, or as a jani-tress in a school or office, or driving a school bus, baby-sitting, ironing, or performing other domestic work.
Even from most of these, under the medical evidence, the plaintiff is barred because, in the ordinary employment opportunities open in them to untrained black females, exposure to the detergents and disinfectants in common use would cause blistering and further loss of pigment and greater disability.
The trial court properly found the plaintiff to be totally disabled under its reasonable factual interpretation of the substantially handicapping effect of the work-injury's residual upon the plaintiff's ability to secure other employment. We find no reason to disturb the trial court's factual findings, as supported by the preponderance of the evidence found credible by it and by reasonable inferences drawn therefrom. See Canter v. Koehring, 283 So.2d 716 (La.1973).
In Charleston v. Veri-Fresh Poultry Company, Inc., 273 So.2d 712, 716 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1973), certiorari denied 277 So.2d 445 (" no error of law.") (La.1973), the intermediate court similarly concluded, under similar circumstances, that the "plaintiff is substantially handicapped in competing in the common labor market for a job, considering her training, sex, education, and the availability of work in her area. Under the authorities applicable . ., she is considered to be totally and permanently disabled within the purview of the workmen's compensation law." See also, to the same effect, Carter v. Lanzetta, 249 La. 1098, 193 So.2d 259 (1966).
Conclusion
We therefore reinstate the trial court's determination that that plaintiff is entitled to workmen's compensation benefits for total and permanent disability. The record reflects that she is entitled to weekly compensation benefits at the rate of $48.10 per week (65% of weekly wages of $74.00 per week). The applicable statutory award for permanent and total disability is for weekly benefits in this amount during disability, not to exceed 500 weeks. La.R.S. 23:1221(2) (1968).
For the foregoing reasons, therefore, we affirm the award by the court of appeal of medical expenses and its taxing of court costs, but we amend its judgment for disability benefits.
Accordingly, we decree judgment for disability benefits in favor of the plaintiff, Anna Mae Lewis, and against the defendant hospital (St. Charles Parish Hospital Service District) and its insurer (Argonaut Southwest Insurance Company), holding them liable in solido for workmen's compensation benefits in the amount of Forty-Eight and 10/100 ($48.10) Dollars per week, commencing December 14, 1973, during disability, not to exceed five hundred weeks in all; with legal interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum upon each unpaid weekly compensation installment from date of delinquency until paid; less credit for compensation and benefits paid. All costs are taxed against the defendants.
COURT OF APPEAL JUDGMENT AMENDED, AND TRIAL COURT DETERMINATION OF TOTAL DISABILITY REINSTATED.
SUMMERS, J., dissents and assigns written reasons.
SANDERS, C. J., dissents for the reasons assigned by SUMMERS, J.
. See La.R.S. 23:1021-1351 (1950), as amended in 1968, but before amendments by Louisiana Act 583 of 1975.
. The medical evidence shows that the. reaction of the plaintiffs skin to exposure to phenol compounds resulted in a condition technically known as "vitiligo". See Maloy, Medical Dictionary For Lawyers (3d ed. 1951), verbo "vitili-go", (p. 710): "Also called leukoderma. It is an acquired pigmentary affection characterized by variously sized and shaped whitish patches on the skin. The patches are smooth, soft, sharply defined, and neither elevated nor depressed. Hairs on the affected areas may or may not turn white. It may involve the whole of the body"; and verbo "leukoderma", (p. 443): " Vitiligo (if acquired it is called vitiligo) is an acquired pigmentary affection characterized by variously sized and shaped milk-white or pinkish-white patches on the skin, which are neither elevated nor depressed. In rare cases it may affect the entire body."
.See trial court's reasons of judgment, Tr. 250, 252, and deposition of Dr. Perret, page 9: "I find loss of pigment to the colored patient is one of the most traumatic things that can happen because they look so different from their peers. They can be seen at a great distance, when one realizes there is some blemish, and people have all kinds of misconceptions about the skin and feel they are contagious and sometimes patients are shunned by relatives and friends."
. Although the defendant's specialist indicated that theoretically the plaintiff could work if provided with phenol-proof gloves, he admitted that he knew of no such gloves on the market that would provide such protection. See Tr. 46-47.