Court Opinion

ID: 9545518
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:14:35.28845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:01.042739
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Justice
(dissenting) :
I am unable to agree with the majority-opinion.
It is my conclusion that the effect of the majority holding is that medical testimony to the effect that claimant’s condition was not caused by his work is sufficient to sustain an order of the State Industrial Court denying an award to such claimant. Such a determination does not decide the basic issue here involved, which is whether or not there was any evidence that the claimant’s work did not aggravate or accelerate an admitted latent pre-disposing condition.
If a workman’s physical structure gives way under stress of his usual labor which aggravates or accelerates a latent pre-dis-posing condition, such injured workman nevertheless may be entitled to compensation for the entire disability resulting from the cumulative effect of work-connected strain combined with underlying illness. See Patrick & Tillman Drilling Co. v. Gentry, 156 Okl. 142, 9 P.2d 921; B & W Truck Service v. Cline, Old., 368 P.2d 499; Truck & Trailer Sales & Service v. Davis, Okl., 372 P.2d 612.
In the case of Ben Hur Coal Co. v. Orum, Okl., 366 P.2d 919, his Court affirmed an award for death benefits. In such case, there was no testimony that the deceased employee sustained a strain. The facts were that the employee on the date of his death had performed his usual work as a miner, admittedly strenuous, and while crawling out of the mine slumped to the ground and there died without making any statement.
The order denying an award herein rests solely on the testimony of Dr. D. In the opinion of this physician, “the work was not the precipitating factor in his (claimant’s) stroke”. Said doctor further testified “its purely speculative to say that the physical exertion caused him to have a stroke”. (Emphasis supplied.)
Although counsel sought to elicit such doctor’s opinion as to whether exertion attendant upon claimant’s labor did contribute to his stroke, the witness gave no answer directly responsive. However, neither the tenor, nor content, of Dr. D.’s testimony seeks to exclude the element of claimant’s work as a factor contributing to the cerebral stroke. On the contrary, such witness conceded that in the case of hypertensive individual, he “would caution him about his exertion.” He added that the exertion of doing work “doesn’t cause the condition in the blood vessels, but it puts more strain on the brain and on blood vessels.” (Emphasis supplied.)
It appears that Dr. D. desired and attempted to confine the effect of his testimony to simply and only demonstrating a definite causal relation betweén pre-exist-ing hypertension and cerebral stroke. The existence of that relation stood admitted and was not in dispute. When the doctor failed to consider the question of and give an opinion as to whether claimant’s work may have contributed to the stroke by aggravating the underlying dormant vascular pathology, and heightening his blood pressure, he, in effect, ignored the crucial issue under inquiry. In short, his testimony appears to have been self-directed and deflected from the one point material to the factual controversy in the proceeding. An example of such is set out in the opinion of the majority as follows:
“He (Dr. D.) was asked whether claimant’s work caused or contributed to the stroke. He answered that in his opinion the work was not the precipitating factor in claimant’s stroke.” (Emphasis supplied.)
Dr. D. was not asked whether or not the work was the precipitating factor but was asked whether or not claimant’s work contributed to the stroke. Such latter question he did not answer.
So far as the record disclosed, Dr. D. expressed no opinion directly bearing on *480the question of whether claimant’s work-connected three-year period of long and hard daily exertion under the circumstances of this case contributed to his cerebral stroke by aggravating or accelerating a latent pre-disposing condition.
A denial of an award by the State Industrial Court based solely on indefinite, equivocal, ambiguous and inconsistent medical proof should not be sustained. Adams v. Reed Roller Bit Co., Old., 335 P.2d 1080.
As set forth in the majority opinion, Dr. D. in his letter report stated: “He (claimant) was doing ordinary manual labor that he had done all of his life-” Such statement would seem to infer that claimant’s work had no causal relation with his cerebral stroke in that he was not doing anything unusually strenuous. (Emphasis supplied.)
In the case of Kelley v. Enid Terminal Elevators, Old., 372 P.2d 589, this Court vacated an order of the State Industrial Court for the reason that said order of denial was based on the fact that the claimant was performing no unusually heavy or strenuous work on the date of the alleged accident which could have caused and precipitated the heart attack. In such opinion we held that the strain induced by the effort expended in performing labor may alone constitute accidental injury even though sustained while the work is done in the normal manner required in the performance of ordinary duties and without the occurrence of an untoward incident connected therewith.
Since the effect of the majority opinion is to approve an order denying an award based solely upon the testimony of Dr. D. and it in turn is based on an improper requirement, i. e., unusually strenuous work, and does not consider whether or not claimant’s work contributed to his stroke by aggravating or accelerating his latent pre-disposing condition, I respectfully dissent.