Court Opinion

ID: 9566025
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:32:10.074855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:17.035463
License: Public Domain

Quillian, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially to dissent.
The purpose of this special concurrence is to draw attention to the fact that Southwire Co. v. Cato, 250 Ga. 895 (302 SE2d 91) needs clarification. The holding in Southwire has been interpreted to mean that the “heart attack” must occur while the employee is actually on the job to be compensable. In my opinion this was not what was held or intended to be held by the Supreme Court in Southwire. This erroneous interpretation may have occurred because the ruling made in Southwire did not fit the second question which the court stated certiorari was granted to answer. The second question stated: “whether the ‘natural inference from human experience’ is applicable to a heart attack occurring at a time when the employee is not engaged in the employer’s business.” Southwire Co. v. Cato, 250 Ga. 895, supra.
*628The court only held that the “natural inference” would not apply when the heart attack did not occur until several hours after the claimant had left the job.
In my opinion, the court did not intend to rule that if there was sufficient evidence that the claimant had experienced symptoms of the attack during his employment and that the duties of his employment were sufficiently strenuous either because of mental strain or physical exertion to cause the heart attack; that the “natural presumption” would not apply because the employee was not actually on the job site.
In my judgment, this was not the intent of the court’s ruling because it would be unreasonable under certain circumstances — an example of these circumstances would be where the facts showed that the employee had a previous heart condition; that he was engaged in very strenuous activities during the entire day of his employment; that he was working in the extreme heat; that he manifested symptoms of the oncoming heart attack several times during the day; that he was highly overweight and a heavy smoker; that he punched out on the time clock and got in his truck and left his employer’s premises; that after he had driven approximately one-half mile he sustained a heart attack and immediately died.
I believe that the Supreme Court in its wisdom would rule that the “natural inference” applied under the circumstances stated above.
However, if that was or was not the intent of the court it would be great service to the Court of Appeals and the trial courts as well as the State Board of Workers’ Compensation and the Bar for it to clarify the issue as to where the “natural inference” rule applies.