Court Opinion

ID: 9669767
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:09:09.852233+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:00.194059
License: Public Domain

Gillespie, J.
dissenting:
With deference, I am unable to agree that the disability in this case is compensable.
This case opens a new field in the application of the Workmen’s Compensation Law, one which I believe to be entirely foreign to the purpose and letter of the Act. In *581substance, this case holds that if the emotional attitude of an employee toward the employment adversely affects her health, resulting in disability, there is an injury arising out of her employment. It seems to me that it is stretching the Act beyond legitimate bounds to say that emotional traits, or mental attitudes towards one’s employment acting on the physical body is an “injury” arising out of the employment. The Act never contemplated that the mental life of an employee, comprising intellectual, emotional, and impulsive activities and predispositions, should become the cause, or precipitating cause, of a compensable “injury”.
Bober els, J. joins in this dissent.
ON SUGGESTION OF EEEOE
Ethridge, J.
Appellants assert that the evidence does not support the finding of the Workmen’s Compensation Commission that the work activities of Mrs. Dinsmore contributed to the cerebral thrombosis which she suffered on May 4, 1955. We have reviewed again the medical and non-medical evidence on this issue, and find appellants’ position to be without merit.
As Deputy Insurance Commissioner, Mrs. Dinsmore had a strenuous administrative job manifestly involving considerable physical exertion, which phrase includes both bodily effort and mental activity. Her duties were supervisory, clerical and stenographic. She was second in authority to the Insurance Commissioner, and many of the functions of that office devolved on her, including licensing of insurance agents, examinations of annual statements submitted by insurance companies, the approval of them, examination of foreign insurance companies applying for admission to do business in the state, inventories of supplies and equipment, purchasing, etc. The Commission further was warranted in finding that, although she had been relieved of some duties, the in*582creased volume of work in the office resulted in Mrs. Dinsmore having still an equal or heavier burden. She had just finished the three busiest months of the year, when she had the “stroke”. After" one reduces the plethora of medical testimony to the precise issue, three of the five doctors who testified gave as their opinions that her employment or work contributed to and aggravated her hypertensive, cardiovascular disease, which was one of the factors in the production of the cerebral thrombosis, and that the hemiplegia was attributable to both the thrombosis and the hyptertensive cardiovascular disease.
 The courts do not pass upon the weight of the medical evidence where the same is conflicting and reasonable. That is the duty of the trier of fact.  The work must be only a contributing and not the sole cause of the injury, and the injury is compensable if the employment aggravated, accelerated or combined with the disease or infirmity to produce the disability or death for which compensation is sought. W. G. Avery Body Co. v. Hall, 224 Miss. 51, 79 So. 2d 453 (1955).  The medical evidence amply supported the Commission’s finding of a contributing connection in fact between the claimant’s strenuous work activities and the cerebral thrombosis.
 There are a multitude of cases awarding compensation where the work contributes to or aggravates a cerebral hemorrhage. 4 Schneider, Workmen’s Compensation Law (1945) Secs. 1328, 1332, 1302; 58 Am. Jur., Workmen’s Compensation, Sec. 255. The experience of other courts in this field demonstrates that any subtle medico-legal distinction between a cerebral hemorrhage and thrombosis would be impractical and unrealistic. 1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law (1952) Secs. 38.70, 38.72, 38.73. The issue as a matter of medical causation is the ability of the particular work activities or strains to affect the particular diseased vascular sys*583tem. The direct medical question, is whether, given this particular employee’s pathology and the exertions of the job, the exertions in fact contributed to the collapse. The medical evidence as a fact must show a causal connection between the obligations of the employment and the final injury. The claimant’s injury or death must be caused in some reasonable substantial degree by the employment. 1 Larson, Ibid., Sec. 38.81. The evidence here meets these requirements.
 The injury does not have to develop instantaneously, but may accrue gradually over a reasonably definite and not remote time. For example, weeks of work and strain may lead to the cerebral thrombosis. Hardin’s Bakeries v. Ranager, 217 Miss. 463, 64 So. 2d 705 (1953); 1 Larson, Ibid., Secs. 39.10, 39.30. This in effect was what the Commission found in the light of the medical evidence. Cf. Fireman’s Fund Indemnity Co. v. Ind. Acc. Comm., 39 Cal. 2d 831, 250 P. 2d 148 (1952); Pa. Threshermen & Farmers’ Mutual Casualty Ins. Co. v. Gilliam, 88 Ga. App. 451, 76 S. E. 2d 834 (1953); Lumbermen’s Mutual Casualty Ins. Co. v. Ind. Acc. Comm., 29 Cal. 2d 492, 175 P. 2d 823 (1946).
 Appellants are in error in interpreting our original controlling opinion as basing compensability upon a specific emotional disturbance of May 4, 1955, or of any prior time period. As stated therein, we concluded that there was substantal medical testimony to support the Commission’s finding- that “the stress and strain of the claimant’s work activities” contributed to her thrombosis. Of course “work activities” comprehend both bodily and mental activities accompanied by stress and strain, all of which are physical in nature, and all of which are present in this case.  The Workmen’s Compensation Act, covering injuries arising out of and in the course of “employment”, includes employments of all types where there are eight or more employees, with stated exceptions. In each case the issue is one of medical causation.
*584Suggestion of error overruled.
All Justices concur except Roberds and Gillespie, JJ., who dissent.