Court Opinion

ID: 9570696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:25:23.068337+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:14:01.021537
License: Public Domain

BIEGELMEIER and HOMEYER, Judges
(dissenting).
This court in Meyer v. Roettele, 64 S.D. 36, 264 N.W. 191, approved a commissioner's award, except for the amount, of *599an employee who died as a result of eating food containing a toxin causing a disease — botulism—which resulted in his death. Pierce v. Phelps Dodge Corp., 42 Ariz. 436, 26 P.2d 1017, was cited in the opinion as denying recovery, but the court stated the Act should be "liberally construed to effectuate its purpose" and declined to follow the Pierce opinion. Later, the Supreme Court of Arizona referring to the Pierce case as a narrow rule and our Meyer opinion as citing and not following it, allowed recovery where an employee breathed carbon tetrachloride from October 1st to December 28th resulting in his death January 3rd. It wrote:
"An injury may be gradual and progressive and not immediately discoverable. * * * ]-je breathed the fumes and was poisoned. * * *
"We hold therefore, anything we may have said in the Pierce case to the contrary notwithstanding, that there was an injury by accident in this case within the meaning of the Arizona Law, as now interpreted, in that the inhalation by the deceased of the fumes from the use of the poisonous carbon tetrachloride, under the circumstances heretofore stated, produced effects that were not intended, foreseen or expected. This was an unlooked for mishap, an unexpected, unusual and extraordinary event not reasonably contemplated as a part of normal conditions of employment." In re Mitchell, 61 Ariz. 436, 150 P.2d 355.
The commissioner found that claimant's condition resulted from a toxic insult to the general nervous system and that it was traceable to an inhalation of paint fumes at the place of his employment. The evidence shows he began his • employment in 1954 and was in good health until July 1956 when definite symptoms of poisoning first appeared and his condition grew progressively worse until December 1956 when he was forced to quit his work. Under the record before us, we cannot say that the commissioner's findings are "unreasonable or palpably erroneous". It is unrealistic to apply the rule requiring a sud*600den happening traceable to a specific time, place, and circumstance (which language has been used frequently in our cases, but indiscriminately applied) to deny recovery.