Baker v. Industrial Accident Commission

243 Cal. App. 2d 380, 52 Cal. Rptr. 276, 31 Cal. Comp. Cases 228, 1966 Cal. App. LEXIS 1688
CourtCalifornia Court of Appeal
DecidedJuly 8, 1966
DocketCiv. 29833
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 243 Cal. App. 2d 380 (Baker v. Industrial Accident Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering California Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baker v. Industrial Accident Commission, 243 Cal. App. 2d 380, 52 Cal. Rptr. 276, 31 Cal. Comp. Cases 228, 1966 Cal. App. LEXIS 1688 (Cal. Ct. App. 1966).

Opinion

FRAMPTON, J. pro tem. *

The petitioner seeks a review and an annulment of a supplemental award of workmen’s compensation benefits made to him wherein the Industrial Accident Commission rated his permanent disability, after apportionment, at 55 percent of total permanent disability.

The question presented is whether the finding that “the *382 injury caused permanent disability of 55%, after apportionment . . .’’is supported by substantial evidence.

The petitioner filed an application for workmen’s compensation benefits wherein he named 23 employers for whom he had worked during the period of time from 1923 to 1961. After the application was filed it was discovered that many of the employers for whom the petitioner had worked had ceased doing business and that their whereabouts were unknown. After such discovery the petitioner elected to and did proceed against four of his former employers, to wit: Paso Bobles Bakery, and its workmen’s compensation carrier, Guarantee Insurance Company; The Bakery and its workmen’s compensation carrier, State Compensation Insurance Fund; The American Bakery and its workmen’s compensation carrier, Industrial Indemnity Company, and McCauleys Home Bakery and its workmen’s compensation carrier, State Compensation Insurance Fund. (Lab. Code, § 5500.5.)

Proceedings on the claim before the respondent commission resulted in a decision after reconsideration on January 21, 1964. Among other things, the petitioner was awarded continuing temporary disability indemnity jointly and severally against the three insurance carriers, respondents herein, who had insured the four bakeries against whom the petitioner had elected to proceed.

Thereafter, further proceedings were had and on July 8, 1965, the commission issued its supplemental findings and award, finding, amongst other things, that the petitioner’s injury resulted in permanent disability of 55 percent, after apportionment. The petitioner sought reconsideration of the award, and the petition for reconsideration was denied.

The petitioner, in his application before the commission, alleged in substance that while working in his occupation as a baker on various dates between the years 1923 and 1961, he sustained an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, caused hy his overexposure to flour dust resulting in his having developed asthma, “or irritation thereto,” culminating in emphysema.

The evidence before the commission disclosed the following: Dr. David M. Caldwell, in his report under date of May 20, 1963, stated in part that: “On reviewing your history, there would appear to be no reasonable doubt but that you did develop bronchial asthma approximately 10 years after you began to work in the bakery. The chief allergen in flour is wheat. In his report, Dr. Knight stated that your *383 intradermal skin test to wheat was 3-plus positive and is significant. It is true that the presence of a positive skin test by no means indicates that such an allergen is the cause of an allergy such as asthma. On the other hand, the test would undoubtedly have been negative if wheat were not the allergen. On page 591, of the text book, Non-Tuberculous Diseases of the Chest’, published by the American College of Chest Physicians in 1954, the following statement appears: ‘Wheat flour can cause asthma by inhalation and dermatitis by contact.’ On page 592, of the same volume, flour of wheat is listed as one of the chief allergens in bronchial asthma and rhinitis. Additionally, in the same table, bakers are listed as among those commonly exposed to occupational dust. ’'

Dr. Caldwell’s report of March 4, 1965, contains the following statement: “In reply to your letter of February 22, 1965, this is to reaffirm that the opinions I expressed to you in my letter of May 20,1963, have not changed.

“However, in that letter I made the statement that you had told me that you had been a heavy smoker of cigarettes for a number of years. We all know that this can be a contributory factor in chronic pulmonary emphysema. In fact, I have never seen a patient with chronic pulmonary emphysema who did not smoke cigarettes. However, I still believe that the principal contributing factor in your case was the longstanding asthma which I believe was the result of allergy to wheat flour. ”

Dr. Alexander Zuekerbraun in his report under date of March 9, 1965, stated: “I have further studied your history and exposure to wheat flour and dust. It is my opinion that it is very probable that this was the cause of your long standing allergic bronchial asthma. This subsequently progressed to chronic pulmonary emphysema.

“Tour pulmonary insufficiency is so severe that it would rule out any employment in the future. ’ ’

Dr. Samuel C. Silipo in his report under date of October 28, 1963, stated in part as follows: “I have examined at your request, Mr. James E. Baker, the applicant in the captioned Industrial Accident case.

“In my opinion, Mr. James E. Baker, has the clinical syndromes of acute and chronic extrinsic bronchial asthma, chronic bronchitis, and chronic obstructive emphysema. It is also my opinion, that the overwhelming primary causes for this present, chronic respiratory disease can most reasonably be attributed to the following major etiological factors:

“1). His personal habit of smoking 1-1 % packs of cigarettes daily for forty years!
*384 “2). His repeated respiratory infections which include ‘typhoid pneumonia’ at age 6, influenza at approximately age 17-18, a respiratory infection in 1934, ‘which laid me up for one week’, influenza in the Air Force around 1942, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, alleged pneumonia at age 46, (which the patient denied), pneumonia once again at age 51, and an average of three to four colds per year for several years.
“In my opinion, the major causes of his emphysema are the two cumulative reasons cited above.

‘ ‘ Other aggravating conditions seem to me to be:

“3). His refusal to change jobs when advised by a physician, around 1932, who warned him that continued working in a bakery would probably injure his lungs. Mr. Baker was only about 26 years old at the time and in my opinion should have and might have tried to learn a new trade. He did not heed medical advice and worked in the bakery against medical advice. To be specific, he worked in approximately twenty [-] three bakeries.
“4). He was advised by physicians to stop smoking. He continued to smoke for forty years, even to the point of smoking during an interview re: litigation for pulmonary disability.
“5). His reported past, personal habit of chronic alcoholism, resulting in hallucinations and hospitalization suggests a level of general health that would certainly aggravate and encourage his tendency for respiratory disease. The possibility of an aspiration pneumonia under the influence of alcohol could well have set the stage for chronic lung disease.
“6).

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Bluebook (online)
243 Cal. App. 2d 380, 52 Cal. Rptr. 276, 31 Cal. Comp. Cases 228, 1966 Cal. App. LEXIS 1688, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baker-v-industrial-accident-commission-calctapp-1966.