Case Name: Aurells ANDREPONT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CALCASIEU PAPER COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee
Court: Louisiana Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1961-06-19
Citations: 131 So. 2d 585
Docket Number: No. 237
Parties: Aurells ANDREPONT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CALCASIEU PAPER COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
Judges: Before TATE, FRUGÉ and CULPEP-PER, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 131
Pages: 585–592

Head Matter:
Aurells ANDREPONT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CALCASIEU PAPER COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 237.
Court of Appeal of Louisiana. Third Circuit.
June 19, 1961.
Rehearing Denied July 12, 1961.
Tate & Tate, by Donald J. Tate, Mamou, for plaintiff-appellant.
Plauche & Plauche, by S. W. Plauche, Jr., Lake Charles, for defendant-appellee.
Before TATE, FRUGÉ and CULPEP-PER, JJ.

Opinion:
TATE, Judge.
This is a suit for workmen's compensation benefits. The plaintiff alleges .that he is disabled because of the aggravation of a heart condition by an accident at work. He appeals from the dismissal of his claim.
The evidence shows that the plaintiff had been employed for approximately six years performing duties in the "beater room" in the defendant's paper plant. These duties involved throwing pieces of scrap paper, sometimes heavy but more often not, into a low container (or "beater"), which processes this material for re-use in the manufacture of paper. The working conditions in the beater room were often hot and occasionally involved the use of steam to remove the chemicals from the re-used scrap paper.
According to the plaintiff's testimony, a pain in the plaintiff's chest which had commenced at work a few days earlier (Tr. 461), but which subsided with rest, became so bad at work on March 20, 1959 that the plaintiff left the defendant's plant approximately an hour after he had gone on duty, and with leave of his foreman went home as being sick. (The plaintiff stated that this incident followed two days of work with "wet strength" paper, involving the use of steam and heavier work than normal.) The plaintiff returned home to Mamou, spent a day in bed, and on the next following day reported to Dr. Hubert Prevost, then of that town, who found the plaintiff's blood pressure greatly elevated and referred the plaintiff to the Veterans Administration hospital in Alexandria. The plaintiff was there hospitalized between March 23rd, and April 13, 1959, when he was discharged as improved. From that date until at least the trial in June of 1960, the plaintiff has been treated for his heart condition by Drs. Prevost and Savoy.
In dismissing the plaintiff's suit the trial court concluded, after a lengthy and scholarly opinion:
"In summary, plaintiff has failed to carry the burden of proving that an accident occurred in the course and scope of his employment. On the contrary it has been proven that plaintiff continues to suffer from hypertension and high blood pressure with which he has suffered symptoms for some 27 years prior to the alleged accident; that his symptoms are no different now than they have been from the day plaintiff checked in with the Veterans Administration on August 31, 1953. Therefore, plaintiff cannot recover."
Basically, the plaintiff's position is that he has proved his total disability because the almost undisputed medical evidence reveals that he is now considered medically disabled from performing hard manual labor, whereas in fact he had done so for six years prior to the present accident. The defendant's position is that the medical testimony undoubtedly reveals that plaintiff has for many years suffered from high blood pressure and a hardening of the arteries, and that he has had repeated other episodes of heart pain, so that the plaintiff is no more disabled at the present than he was prior to the incident of March 20th.
No useful purpose will be served in re-analyzing the medical and lay testimony in this extensive record, which was to a great extent summarized by our learned trial brother. Suffice it to say, we agree with the lower court's conclusion that the plaintiff has not borne his burden of proving that his present disability is greater than that which pre-existed the incident at work of March 20, 19S9, and that we do not find to be manifestly erroneous the District Court's determination that the subjective pains, of which the plaintiff now complains, are no more disabling than those of which the plaintiff complained for several years before the accident and even prior to his employment by the defendant. For the reasons noted by the trial court, we do not accept the plaintiff's contention that the pre-1959 pains of which the plaintiff complained were the result of a gall bladder rather than a cardiovascular condition.
On the other hand, we cannot agree with our learned trial brother that the plaintiff has not sustained an accident within the meaning of the compensation statute. For as was recently restated, with extensive citation of authority, in Talbot v. Trinity Universal Insurance Co., La.App. 1 Cir., 99 So.2d 811, 818, certiorari denied:
" 'The jurisprudence is now well settled that, to constitute an accident within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Statute in cases where the work of the employee requires physical effort and exertion, it is not necessary that the injury from which disability follows be the result of unusual physical effort if a diseased organ gives way or its function is impaired while the laborer is discharging his usual and customary duties and disability results, for it to be compensable. While it has been said a heart attack is not an accident within the purview of the Workmen's Compensation Law, LSA-R.S. 23:1021 et seq., yet, if an employee had a pre-existing heart condition which is aggravated by his work, excessive heat, intense hard labor, sudden fright or attack, or any other stress that might aggravate such condition and cause disability or death, such resulting disability or death would be compensable under the statute.' "
See also: Cutno v. Neeb Kearney Co., 237 La. 828, 112 So.2d 628.
The uncontradicted evidence indicates that the plaintiff left work because of greatly aggravated chest pain following exertion in the performance of his duties, was examined within two days by his family physician with a report.of such work-induced aggravation, and was immediately hospitalized in the Veterans Administration hospital because of consistent complaints of chest pain; that the Mamou and Veterans Administration examining physicians found his blood pressure greatly elevated; and that the Veterans Administration hospital found that his "initial' ECG was definitely abnormal" and that another heart test, the Master's two-step, "was definitely positive". (Tr. 163.) Upon his release from the latter hospital as "improved", it was recommended by the attending physicians "that the patient should pursue a somewhat restricted type of work". (Tr. 163.)
While able counsel for the defendant points out that the plaintiff did not for several months claim in conversation or correspondence with the defendant's representatives that the heart condition was work-connected, nevertheless the uncontra-dicted medical and lay testimony indicates that the heart condition immediately following March 20th was disabling and was aggravated by the plaintiff's exertion at work.
The examination at plaintiff's request by Dr. Craig, internist, on October 6, 1959, and at defendant's request by Dr. Anderson, internist, on May 13, 1960, indicates that plaintiff's physical and heart condition was within normal limits and that the EKG and Master's Two-Step tests for heart disorder produced negative results. Besides elevation in blood pressure, the only symptom then of disability was his subjective complaints of pain which (as earlier stated) the trial court did not accept as accurate.
As the trial court noted, ttpon learning of the plaintiff's prior medical history, Dr. Craig felt it was not possible that the plaintiff "was totally and permanently disabled by reason of any exertion he underwent on March 20, 1959". (P. 29, Craig deposition; Tr. 65). But while he testified that the strenuous work on that date did not aggravate the pre-existing hypertension insofar as the "aggravation persisted indefinitely", he also stated that "the normal response to activity is an elevation of blood pressure, therefore if one has an elevated blood pressure to begin with it will aggravate that by causing it to go from high to higher" (Tr. 62) and that in such sense the plaintiff's "pre-existing hypertension may have been aggravated at the time — the time there referring to the time that he developed this complaint back on the 20th of March 1959 — by the strenuous work in which he was involved" (Tr. 57).
Besides the above-mentioned doctors, the only physicians who examined and treated the plaintiff following the incident of March 20, 1959, were Drs. Savoy and Prevost, general practitioners and surgeons. Although their testimony and office records were somewhat vague as to dates, it appears that they have been treating the plaintiff for cardiovascular disease since his discharge from the VA hospital. These doctors believe that the plaintiff cannot perform the hard manual labor in which formerly employed and that he is more disabled than before by reason of "angina pectoris" (literally, pain in the chest), due primarily to an inadequate supply of blood to the heart upon exertion (when the heart requires more blood) because of the plaintiff's hypertension (high blood pressure) and the hardening (narrowing) of the plaintiff's arteries.
However, Dr. Savoy had treated the plaintiff for over twenty years, and he essentially admitted that he could not state that the plaintiff is now more disabled than he was prior to the March 20th incident. Dr. Prevost first saw the plaintiff professionally immediately following the March 20th incident, and he likewise admitted that there has been an improvement in the plaintiff's condition over the course of the treatment (which improvement, however, he ascribed to rest and medication.)
As earlier stated, we agree with the trial court that the plaintiff did not at the trial of this suit in June, 1960 prove any permanent aggravation of his pre-existing-cardiovascular condition, and we therefore affirm the trial court's dismissal of this claim for compensation benefits for total and permanent disability. But in our opinion, to repeat, the plaintiff has proved his initial disability following and as caused by the March 20th incident at work, which initial disability is objectively corroborated by the plaintiff's greatly elevated blood pressure at the time, and by the abnormal EKG and the positive Master's Two-Step tests upon admission to the Veterans hospital shortly afterwards, as well as by the plaintiff's consistent and uncontradicted complaints of chest pain as coming on while performing hot and heavy work, both to the examining physicians and to lay witnesses.
The medical testimony indicates that a patient with the plaintiff's cardiovascular condition may have temporary flareups of heart pain and disability, which will subside with rest and treatment. (In fact, the plaintiff's medical and working history indicates that before 1959 he had at least two such temporary aggravations into disability of his otherwise non-disabling cardiovascular disease.) Although Drs. Savoy's and Prevost's testimony indicates a continued disability beyond such date, nevertheless in considering the record as a whole, we think that, in the somewhat arbitrary determination of the ending of this temporary disability, it will be fair to accept Dr. Craig's testimony that by October 6, 1959, there were no further symptoms of this disability (except for subjective complaints which the trial court did not accept as well-founded).
We conclude therefore that the plaintiff is entitled to workmen's compensation benefits, including the cost of reasonable medical treatment incurred during such interval, from March 20th, 1959, the date of the work-induced disability, up to and through October 6, 1959, the date that we find the temporary disability terminated.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the trial court is amended to award the plaintiff compensation at the rate of $35 per week commencing March 20, 1959 and ending October 6, 1959, together with legal interest upon each weekly installment from the day of delinquency until paid, and for all reasonable medical expenses incurred for treatment of the plaintiff's disability between these dates. In all other respects, the trial court's judgment dismissing the plaintiff's demand is affirmed. The defendant is taxed with the costs of these proceedings and of this appeal.
Amended and affirmed.
. Dr. Anderson, internist, testified that that "Master's Two Steps" was a test by which a suspected heart patient went up and down a set of two-steps for two minutes, immediately following which one electrocardiogram is taken and then five minutes later another electrocardiogram is taken. The purpose of this test is to bring out any changes in heart operation brought about by exertion and to furnish objective proof that heart trouble is the cause of a patient's chest pain. (See Tr. 374, 379.)