Arkansas-Louisiana Gas Company v. Blackwood

1969 OK 98, 456 P.2d 507
CourtSupreme Court of Oklahoma
DecidedJuly 1, 1969
Docket42956
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 1969 OK 98 (Arkansas-Louisiana Gas Company v. Blackwood) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Arkansas-Louisiana Gas Company v. Blackwood, 1969 OK 98, 456 P.2d 507 (Okla. 1969).

Opinions

BLACKBIRD, Justice.

The respondent, Virgil Blackwood, hereinafter referred to as “claimant”, is a veteran of military service in the U. S. Armed Forces, during 1954 and 1955. In that period, he was treated for an injury to his left leg. In 1957, he became employed by the petitioner, Arkansas-Louisiana Gas Company, hereinafter referred to, individually, as the “employer”, at Ada. In 1958, claimant went to a specialist, who operated on his left leg and assisted him in establishing that his leg injury was connected with his military service and obtaining a decision of the Veterans Administration’s adjudication division, for disability compensation purposes, that said injury was 11'% disabling.

Claimant’s leg improved after the operation, and, after an absence from his job of 13 or 14 weeks in 1958, he returned to work for employer, but, because of his leg condition, was transferred to Seminole County to work under the employer’s Seminole manager, Mr. Clifton, in 1961. Claimant’s leg condition became worse, and, because, in walking, it threw his “body out of kilter”, he began to suffer pain in his back. Claimant went back to the Veterans Administra[508]*508tion for periodic check-ups, and, on his own initiative, began wearing a back brace intermittently.

On November 21, 1967, claimant’s employer sent him, driving one of its trucks with a two-way radio in it, from its Seminole office to Maud, Oklahoma, to read its meters there, accompanied by one of its younger employees, Bert Renfrow. After the two men left the truck and started reading the meters on foot, claimant began to complain of pain. Thereafter, when the two men encountered greater distances between meter locations, claimant got back in the truck and drove those distances. Finally, after they had covered many blocks of their meter-reading route, claimant called Mr. Clifton, on the truck’s radio, before noon, and told him he was hurting so bad he couldn’t continue the work. Clifton told him to “come right on in”. Thereupon, Renfrow drove claimant in the truck back to Seminole and let him out on the driveway by employer’s office. Claimant then went next door to the office of Dr. B., who had been his doctor since 1961; and Ren-frow parked the truck and went into employer’s office.

Dr. B. gave claimant “some pain pills”, as well as a “knock-out shot”, so he could rest, and sent him home. Claimant has not worked since, but employer did not take him off its payroll until he had been paid during a two months “sick leave” which lasted until January 20, 1968.

During this two months’ period, Dr. B. treated claimant a few days, and told him he’d like for him to go to the VA (Veterans Administration) Hospital “and let them check me out and see if it (the leg condition) had any effect on my back”. Claimant fulfilled the doctor’s expressed desire to the extent of being examined at the Veterans Hospital by a Dr. C., on December 21, 1967 (as shown by said doctor’s report of that date).

Thereafter, in January (apparently after he learned that his employment had, or was being, terminated) claimant inquired at employer’s Seminole office if he “was going to get to go back to work”. Clifton then asked him if he could get a release from a doctor. Thereupon, claimant went to Dr. B., who would not give him one, but suggested that he contact the Veterans Administration. Claimant was then examined at the Oklahoma City VA Hospital (this time, in its out-patient clinic) on January 26, 1968. When claimant took the report of this VA examination to Mr. Clifton, Clifton told him he would have to report to a Dr. F., in Oklahoma City, for an examination, before he could go back to work. Dr. F. examined claimant on February 7, 1968, but employer did not re-employ him.

About two weeks later, claimant filed his Form 3 with the State Industrial Court, seeking disability compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Act for an accidental “back injury”, represented to have occurred on November 21, 1967. The “Cause of Accident” set forth on said claim form was: “stepping out of truck”.

In the answer they filed in said court, employer and its insurance carrier, hereinafter referred to, collectively, as “respondents”, denied, in substance, that claimant's disability was the result of any accidental injury in the course of his employment, and alleged that claimant had not given proper notice of such an injury.

After trial before one of said Industrial Court’s trial judges, claimant was awarded compensation benefits for a temporary total disability during the period from January 20,1968, to February 7,1968. By said order, the court reserved claimant’s “permanent partial disability, if any, * * * for further determination", and, after finding that claimant had sustained an “accidental personal injury, arising out of and in the course of his hazardous employment * * * on November 21, 1967, consisting of injury to his back”, also found :

“That respondent had actual knowledge of claimant’s said accidental injury, and therefore claimant’s failure to give written notice of same did not operate to prejudice of respondent, and the failure to give such written notice is excused.”

[509]*509In the present proceeding in this court to review said award, respondents contend that there is “ * * * NO COMPETENT OR SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE” to support the trial tribunal’s finding that claimant’s employer (referred to in said tribunal’s above-quoted order as “respondent”) had actual knowledge that he sustained any accidental injury to his back during the course of his employment by it on November 21, 1967.

Claimant does not deny that, if the employer had no such “actual knowledge”, his undisputed failure to give the written notice within 30 days after his alleged injury, as prescribed by our Workmen’s Compensation Act (Tit. 85, O.S.1961, sec. 24), had the effect, under said Act, of barring his claim. He does contend, however, that the issue of whether or not his employer had such knowledge, was a question of fact to be determined by the Industrial Court, and that there was competent evidence reasonably tending to support that court’s finding on that question, so the award will not be disturbed by this court.

It may be reasonably concluded, from our narrative of the undisputed facts in this case, that the employer, through its manager, Mr. Clifton, received actual notice, or knowledge, directly from the claimant, himself, that he received his claimed disability during the course of his employment in reading meters at Maud on November 21, 1967. But the precise and crucial question then becomes: Is such knowledge, indicating that claimant may have become physically disabled during the performance of his duties on that day, the equivalent (under the Workmen’s Compensation law, as applied to the facts of this case) of knowledge that an accidental injury (such as he alleged from “stepping out of truck”) caused claimant to become so disabled ?

Searching claimant’s brief for support of an affirmative answer to this question, we find reference to the record of his own testimony as to how he injured his back at Maud on November 21, 1967, also about his afore-mentioned two-way radio conversation from there with manager Clifton in employer’s Seminole office, and about his conversation on the job that day with his fellow employee, Bert Renfrow. He also refers to his own affirmative answer to his counsel’s question: “Is he (Dr. B.) the doctor you were usually referred to, or do you know ?”

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Arkansas-Louisiana Gas Company v. Blackwood
1969 OK 98 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1969)

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Bluebook (online)
1969 OK 98, 456 P.2d 507, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/arkansas-louisiana-gas-company-v-blackwood-okla-1969.