Court Opinion

ID: 9581483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:15:19.975518+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:59.253648
License: Public Domain

Quillian, Judge,
concurring specially. While medical testimony that a claimant’s exertion might have been sufficient to precipitate a heart attack is not necessary to support an award to that effect, in the absence of such medical testimony, “the evidence must show the work engaged in by the employee to have been sufficiently strenuous or of such a nature that, combined with the other facts of the case, it raises a natural inference through human experience that the exertion contributed toward the precipitation of the attack.” Hoffman v. *599National Surety Corp., 91 Ga. App. 414 (85 SE2d 784). Examples of compensation being granted in the absence of medical testimony are where the claimant had been working all day with a heavy sledge hammer (Williams v. Maryland Cas. Co., 67 Ga. App. 649 (21 SE2d 478)), and where the claimant had been engaged in fighting fires which was shown to be very strenuous work. Travelers Ins. Co. v. Young, 77 Ga. App. 512 (48 SE2d 748).
In my opinion the exertion shown in the present case was not sufficient to meet the test that it raised a natural inference through human experience that it contributed toward precipitating the heart attack. There being no medical testimony that the claimant’s activity might have contributed to the attack, the evidence was insufficient to support the award.