Court Opinion

ID: 9777954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:28:57.164679+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:02.748338
License: Public Domain

*385OSBORN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The proof in this case establishes an occurrence that is traceable to a definite time and place. It does not establish that the occurrence resulted in or caused any strain or overexertion. The occurrence came at about 8:45 a.m. just as the Phillips Petroleum Company crew arrived in the field to repair a leaking gas line. Debra Barnes, a co-employee and witness for the Appellee, testified that she was standing on the left side of the truck, toward the rear, and she said, “I could see him (Mr. Courtney) clearly.” She testified that he had raised the lid on the tool box on the welding truck, took out his hard hat and put it on and collapsed within thirty to forty-five seconds. He did not remove anything from the tool box other than his hat. She testified that his opening the lid on the tool box was the first physical labor that he had done that day.
Hershel Dennis, a Phillips employee who designed the tool box, testified the top of the box was forty-eight inches above the ground. It was made of ⅝ inch sheet metal. He said he had opened and closed it many times. He further testified that opening the lid would take very minimal physical effort and that “it wouldn’t be as hard as opening and closing a car door.”
The Texas Supreme Court has reviewed several cases involving heart attacks and set forth applicable rules by which a determination is to be made concerning whether a claimant sustained an “accidental injury” under the Workers’ Compensation Law.
In Olson v. Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, 477 S.W.2d 859 (Tex.1972), the Court said:
For there to be an accidental injury, or an industrial accident, there must be an undesigned, untoward event traceable to a definite time, place, and cause.
The opinion by Justice Greenhill affirmed this Court’s “take-nothing judgment because there was no showing of any strain, exertion, traumatic shock, or particular exciting mental stimulus which precipitated the heart attack.” That opinion listed cases where there had been recovery for heart attacks, strokes and traumatic neuroses involving particular events. Justice Greenhill concluded by noting that the Court had been “liberal * * * in holding that there was some evidence of a particular strain, overexertion or shock which caused the incapacity.”
The following year in Baird v. Texas Employers’ Insurance Association, 495 S.W.2d 207 (Tex.1973), the Court reviewed a case where the employee sustained a fatal heart attack after lunch while working on a five-foot ladder to install electrical conduit. Mrs. Baird claimed that climbing the ladder “did constitute strain and overexertion to Mr. Baird, because of his weakened physical condition.” In concluding that the evidence raised a fact issue, the Court said:
[I]t is now well settled that a heart attack caused by strain or over-exertion is an accidental injury to the physical structure of the body within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Act * * *.
The Court in that case distinguished the holding in Whitaker v. General Insurance Company of America, 461 S.W.2d 148 (Tex.Civ.App.-Dallas 1970, writ ref’d n.r. e.), because in that case “there was no evidence of probative force that work requiring strenuous exertion or strain was performed by the workman * * The Court also refused to follow Monks v. Universal Underwriters Insurance Company, 425 S.W.2d 431 (Tex.Civ.App.-Tyler 1968, writ ref’d n.r.e.), where there was “no probative evidence that the work being performed by the deceased at the time of the heart attack was strenuous or required overexertion * * *.” That decision was apparently “too liberal” for Chief Justice Greenhill and he noted his dissent.
In the next important case, Henderson v. Travelers Insurance Company, 544 S.W.2d 649 (Tex.1976), the employee, at the end of a day’s work as an air hoist operator, had a heart attack and died. In that case, the plaintiff proved by an air hoist operator that the tasks Mr. Henderson had performed were physically strenuous and that it was a demanding job. Justice *386McGee noted: “In the case now under consideration, it was revealed that Henderson had worked a full shift doing a job that could often be strenuous in nature.” The Court again held that there was a fact issue for determination and relied primarily upon its holding in the Baird ease “that a heart attack caused by strain or over-exertion is an accidental injury to the physical structure of the body within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Act * *.” This time Chief Justice Greenhill wrote a dissent.
Following those cases, this Court in Jackson v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, 580 S.W.2d 70 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1979, writ ref d n.r.e.), affirmed a judgment n.o.v. in a case where a truck driver suffered a heart attack while doing some paper work preliminary to leaving on a scheduled out-of-state trip. Chief Justice Preslar noted:
[T]hat a fact issue of whether a heart attack occurred in the course of employment is not created without evidence of some specific job related strain or exertion or some undesigned, untoward event traceable to a definite time, place and cause.
Later, in Texas Employers’ Insurance Association v. Brown, 622 S.W.2d 608 (Tex.App.-El Paso 1981), affirmed, 635 S.W.2d 415 (Tex.1982), this Court in a heart attack death case involving an alleged mental stress reversed and rendered a take-nothing judgment. Justice Ward, in the Court’s opinion, said:
Here the Plaintiff meets head-on the Court made limitation applicable to heart attack cases that generally there must be proof of an actual job-related strain and over-exertion before recovery will be permitted.
* He * * * *
The “strain and exertion” requirement has been adopted by the Supreme Court primarily to insure that the injury of a heart attack is indeed causally related to the work activity of an employee.
In affirming our decision, the Court in an opinion by Justice Ray noted those cases which have held that there must be evidence of an undesigned, untoward event traceable to a definite time, place and cause. Since that case involved a mental stress, the Court was not concerned with the issue of a physical strain or overexertion.
What conclusions can be drawn from these cases? First, heart attack cases involving mental and emotional stress must be based upon an occurrence or event which is traceable to a definite time, place and cause. Brown v. Texas Employers’ Insurance Association, supra; Olson v. Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, supra. Second, heart attack cases involving physical activity must be based upon some type of physical strain or overexertion. Henderson v. Travelers Insurance Company, supra; Baird v. Texas Employers’ Insurance Association, supra. Third, the physical strain or overexertion may result from the collective efforts required in a day’s work rather than a single isolated incident. Henderson v. Travelers Insurance Company, supra; Baird v. Texas Employers’ Insurance Association, supra. Fourth, the physical strain or overexertion required will be less for one suffering a preexisting abnormal heart condition. Baird v. Texas Employers’ Insurance Association, supra; Continental Insurance Company v. Marshall, 506 S.W.2d 913 (Tex.Civ.App.-El Paso 1974, no writ). Fifth, but even where there is a preexisting condition which makes a person more susceptible to a heart attack, performing a task which requires no more than normal physical exertion will not make an “on the job” heart attack compensible. Jackson v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, supra.
In this case, before medical evidence could establish that a strain or overexertion was a producing cause of the fatal heart attack, it was necessary to establish that the work performed resulted in a strain or overexertion by the deceased employee. Not a single witness suggested that opening the lid on the tool box resulted in any type of strain or overexertion. The best *387description was that it involved “very minimal physical effort” — less than opening a car door. If very minimal physical effort is to qualify as a strain or overexertion, then signing one’s time sheet should qualify and our decision in Jackson v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, supra, should be overruled; it cannot be distinguished. Both of these cases involved workmen with preexisting conditions, both involved heart attacks at the beginning of the day’s work and both involved minimal physical effort.
I am unable to distinguish the “minimal physical effort” in this case from the holdings in:
(1) Houston Fire & Casualty Ins. Co. v. Biber, 146 S.W.2d 442 (Tex.Civ.App.—San Antonio 1940, writ dism’d judgmt cor.), where Justice Norvell noted that there was no direct evidence of “strenuous physical exertion” by a foreman of a cottonseed house;
(2) General Accident, Fire & Life Assur. Corp. v. Perry, 264 S.W.2d 198 (Tex.Civ.App.-Galveston 1954, writ ref’d n.r. e.), where Chief Justice Hamblen said there was no evidence of exertion or strain by a tractor driver which caused his heart attack;
(3) Monks v. Universal Underwriters Insurance Company, supra, where Justice Sellers found no probative evidence that a workman rotating automobile tires was doing work which was “strenuous or required overexertion”;
(4) Travelers Insurance Company v. Smith, 448 S.W.2d 541 (Tex.Civ.App.—El Paso 1969, writ ref'd n.r.e.), where Justice Ward in a case involving an oil field pumper found “no evidence of probative force in this record to establish that Mr. Smith sustained a strain in the course of his employment * * * ”;
(5) Whitaker v. General Insurance Company of America, supra, where Justice Williams in a case involving a service station employee said, “[t]here is no evidence of probative force in this record that Mr. Whitaker was required to perform work that required strenuous exertion or strain”;
(6) Cavazos v. Fidelity & Casualty Company of New York, 590 S.W.2d 173 (Tex.Civ.App.-Corpus Christi 1979, no writ), where Justice Bissett in a case involving a locksmith said, “[f]irst, it must be determined whether there is evidence of an undesigned, untoward event involving overexertion or strain which is traceable to a definite time, place and cause” and further noted, “there is no testimony by any witness that claimant’s job could be strenuous or that claimant actually engaged in any activity involving overexertion or unusual stress.”
In this case, the argument is made that just prior to his heart attack Mr. Courtney was going to the tool box to obtain a buffer to be used in repairing the pipeline leak. There is no evidence that he ever removed the buffer from the tool box and the most favorable inference that may be made on a “no evidence” point is that he reached into the tool box before he collapsed. The Ap-pellee does not even suggest that reaching into the tool box, if in fact the evidence justifies that conclusion, constituted a strain or overexertion.
Believing that there is no evidence of a strain or overexertion, I would sustain the Appellant’s Points of Error Nos. One and Two. In considering all of the evidence in the record, including the testimony of Hershel Dennis that opening the lid would take very minimal physical effort, I would also sustain Point of Error No. Three and find that the verdict is against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence.