Title: Reynolds Metals Company v. Gray
Citation: 178 So. 2d 87
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: July 15, 1965

178 So. 2d 87 (1965)
REYNOLDS METALS COMPANY
v.
Clara Mae GRAY et al.
8 Div. 184.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
July 15, 1965.
Rehearing Denied September 2, 1965.
*88 Almon &amp; McAlister, Sheffield, for appellant.
Howell T. Heflin, Tuscumbia, for appellees.
SIMPSON, Justice.
This is a workmen's compensation case brought by the widow and dependent child of McKinley Gray, deceased. The trial court made the following findings here pertinent:
"That on November 10 [sic, 19], 1961 that the relationship of employer and employee existed between the plaintiff and the defendant, and that on said
"The Court, therefore, concludes as follows:
From this finding Reynolds seeks a review. The only issue which separates the parties is whether the cause of death of McKinley Gray was an accident within the meaning of our workmen's compensation statute. Title 26, § 253, Code.
Our review is limited as follows:
This principle clearly indicates that we must construe the facts favorably to the employee in this case, where the evidence allows such a construction, "* * * which is to say, that `if there is any legal evidence on any reasonable view, or reasonable inference therefrom, that supports the facts found and conclusion announced by the court, it is sufficient under the statute, and the judgment rendered will not be disturbed.'" W. T. Smith Lumber Co. v. Raines, 271 Ala. 671, 127 So. 2d 619.
With this predicate we turn to the record. Is there any evidence to support the findings set out above? Clearly there is. A co-worker of the deceased testified that the deceased picked up and put into the furnace eight or ten pieces of magnesium which weighed fifty pounds each, that they were heavy, that they weighed collectively in the neighborhood of four to five hundred pounds which Mr. Gray lifted within *90 a period of eight to ten minutes. He further testified that the heat from the furnace when the door was opened would come out and that the temperature in the furnace was around 1350 degrees fahrenheit, and that a person putting eight or ten magnesium sticks into a furnace would be in front of the door where the temperature would be from 1300 to 1400 degrees fahrenheit for a period of eight to ten and possibly fifteen minutes; that Mr. Gray and he put the fluxing pipes in this furnace just before Mr. Gray complained of pains in his arms and went to the first aid station. He died the following day.
Reynolds argues that there is no accident here since no one occurrence can be pinpointed as having caused the attack. Under the law in Alabama it is not essential that an external traumatic injury occur. Pow v. Southern Construction Company, 235 Ala. 580, 180 So. 288. We have stated in several recent cases that where the proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury was the strain or exertion of his work (as distinguished from exposure), a finding by the trial court that the plaintiff had been subjected to unusual strain or over-exertion was not necessary to support a conclusion that the injury was caused by an accident arising out of his employment and compensable under our workmen's compensation statute. Alabama Textile Products Corporation v. Grantham, 263 Ala. 179, 184, 82 So. 2d 204, 208, noted with approval in Southern Cotton Oil Company v. Wynn, 266 Ala. 327, 96 So. 2d 159.
In this last case we stated that:
See also Davis Lumber Co. v. Self, 263 Ala. 276, 82 So. 2d 291.
This Court has recognized in several cases that heart attacks may be caused by accidents within the meaning of our statute when the employee is shown to have been engaged in strenuous activity connected with his employment prior to or at the time of the fatal attack.
We have carefully studied the record in this case. We find ample evidence to support the findings made by the trial court. It is undisputed that just prior to the time the decedent first complained of pain in his arms he had been engaged in extremely strenuous work and subjected to extreme temperatures. Medical experts testified that a coronary thrombosis (from which decedent died) could be caused from such exertion. These circumstances, along with the presumption in favor of the court's finding, clearly indicate that the judgment appealed from should be affirmed.
We think the language used in Gulf States Creosoting Company v. Walker, 224 Ala. 104, 139 So. 261, is equally appropriate here:
This language is equally appropriate regardless of the type of condition causing death. In the above case the decedent had a hernia.
We recognize that the workmen's compensation statute as enacted in this state *91 does not write a life insurance policy covering every employee covered under it, but we think in cases where it is established that the job killed the worker, the legislature intended that his widow and minor children would be compensated.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and MERRILL and HARWOOD, JJ., concur.