Alford v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp.

229 So. 2d 372, 1969 La. App. LEXIS 5629
Louisiana Court of Appeal·Decided December 1, 1969·No. No. 3669·Published·Cited by 6 cases

Opinion

CHASEZ, Judge.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Twenty-Fifth Judicial District Court for the Parish of St. Bernard in which plaintiff-appellant, Bud C. Alford’s claim for Workmen’s Compensation was denied. Suit was originally brought in the Twenty-Second Judicial District Court for the Parish of St. Tammany, but was transferred to the Twenty-Fifth Judicial District Court for St. Bernard Parish by order of the Twenty-Second Judicial District Court on exceptions to the jurisdiction filed by appellee.

The petition of plaintiff-appellant alleged that he suffered two heart attacks while acting within the scope and course of his employment for defendant-appellee, Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation, (Kaiser) which attacks totally and permanently disabled him; that the attacks arose out of and were caused by the work performed by him for Kaiser. He alleged that the first attack occurred on November 12, 1964 and the second on March 8, 1965, and that the attacks occurred because of his exposure to extreme heat while engaged in the course of strenuous labor at defendant-appellee’s aluminum reduction plant at Chalmette, Louisiana.

Defendant-appellee denied that Alford suffered any heart attack or even an “accident” within the intendment of the Louisiana Workmen’s Compensation Statute but instead suffers from arteriosclerosis, a non-compensable disease.

An additional issue raised by plaintiff-appellant is whether or not defendant should be compelled to answer certain interrogatories propounded by plaintiff Alford or certain requests for admission of fact addressed to defendant Kaiser by appellant. These interrogatories and requests for admission of facts were asked for by plaintiff during the discovery stage of this lawsuit. [374]*374Defendant denied the relevancy of these requests and refused to answer them.

An issue raised for the first time on appeal is whether or not a Motion to Strike filed by defendant-appellee should be granted, which Motion seeks to strike certain information contained in plaintiff-appellant’s brief to this court. The material sought to be stricken is contained in a newsletter issued by Local 13000 of the Union to which Mr. Alford belonged. The Motion to Strike was submitted before this court in oral argument.

The lower court gave no written reasons for its judgment but denied plaintiff’s claim for Workmen’s Compensation and dismissed his suit from which judgment plaintiff Alford has prosecuted this appeal.

Our initial consideration will be directed toward the Motion to Strike filed by appel-lee. The grounds for the motion are that the material was presented for the first time on appeal, was not an exhibit, and formed no part of the transcript or record lodged in this court. Appellant in his answer to the Motion to Strike argued, and rightly so, that this was in no way any effort to supplement the transcript but was merely supportive of appellant’s brief and forms a part of his argument. We agree with appellant and therefore deny the Motion to Strike with the added statement that the newsletter being only a portion of appellant’s brief will be given no greater or lesser consideration than any other argument urged by appellant in his brief.

The next issue concerns whether or not the defendant-appellee should have been compelled to answer either the interrogatories propounded by plaintiff or the requests for admission of facts filed by plaintiff. In both the interrogatories and the request for admission of facts plaintiff sought to elicit information from Kaiser as to whether certain other individuals who worked under similar circumstances as plaintiff had suffered heart attacks. Defendant refused to answer these questions on the ground that they were irrelevant to the case at hand.

Article 1491 of the Code of Civil Procedure has reference to interrogatories of parties and states that interrogatories may relate to any matters which can be inquired into under Article 1436 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Article 1436 of the Code of Civil Procedure states in pertinent part; “* * * [T]he deponent may be examined regarding any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action * * It necessarily follows that interrogatories are limited to matters relevant to the case under consideration.

Article 1496 of the Code of Civil Procedure relates to requests for admission of facts and states in part that:

“After commencement of an action a party may serve without leave of court upon any other party a written request for the admission by the latter of the genuineness of any relevant documents described in and exhibited with the request or of the truth of any relevant matters of fact set forth in the request.”

By definition of Article 1496 the matters must be relevant.

Plaintiff in interrogatories numbered 38 through 46 wanted to know if various other employees who worked under similar conditions as plaintiff had suffered any heart attacks. The same information was sought in requests for admission of facts numbered 20 through 28 and 30 through 37. The trial judge at hearings prior to the trial on the merits relieved the defendant Kaiser from the obligation of answering these questions for reason that they were not relevant. The trial judge has very broad discretion in limiting the scope of interrogatories which are propounded and to make such orders to protect the party to whom the interrogatories are propounded from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression or undue expense. LSA-[375]*375C.C.P. art. 1452; Dawson v. Lindsey, 143 So.2d 150 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1962). Unless there was grave error in the judgment of the trial judge it should not be set aside. We do not find that the trial judge abused his discretion. We agree that whether other employees had heart attacks or not does not go towards proving that the plain-. tiffi in this case suffered a heart attack. We therefore affirm the lower court in not compelling the defendant to answer the interrogatories or requests for admission of facts insofar as they relate to other employees.

It goes without question that a heart attack is a compensable injury if suffered while in the scope of employment and if it arises out of the employment. Danziger v. Employers Mutual Liability Ins. Co. of Wis., 245 La. 33, 156 So.2d 468 (1963) and cases cited therein. The only question posed before the trial court was whether in fact the plaintiff, Bud C. Alford, did indeed suffer a heart attack. The record reflects that his job as an anode man required him to work in an area where the temperatures were unusually high. His duties entailed opening the door to an aluminum reduction pot, extending his arms and upper body into the pot while standing on a flex board, which was a board extending into the pot with one end resting on the crust of the molten aluminum. He would then use a wrench to loosen a large nut which held a flex strip into place, a flex strip being a strip attached to an anode which supplied electricity for the reduction process. The anode was slowly lowered into the aluminum ore which necessitated a periodic raising of the flex strip to keep it free from the aluminum ore being reduced in the pot. The anode man would raise the flex strip to the next attachment and replace the nut. This process required an above average amount of exertion and took from 4 to 15 minutes to accomplish and had to be done at fairly short intervals. Under this factual situation if Bud Alford suffered a heart attack in the performance of his duties he is certainly entitled to compensation.

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Alford v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., 229 So. 2d 372, 1969 La. App. LEXIS 5629 (La. Ct. App. 1969).

229 So. 2d 372 (Alford v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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