Cebak v. John Nooter Boiler Works Co.

258 S.W.2d 262, 1953 Mo. App. LEXIS 364
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 19, 1953
Docket28605, 28609
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 258 S.W.2d 262 (Cebak v. John Nooter Boiler Works Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cebak v. John Nooter Boiler Works Co., 258 S.W.2d 262, 1953 Mo. App. LEXIS 364 (Mo. Ct. App. 1953).

Opinion

258 S.W.2d 262 (1953)

CEBAK
v.
JOHN NOOTER BOILER WORKS CO.

Nos. 28605, 28609.

St. Louis Court of Appeals. Missouri.

May 19, 1953.
Rehearing Denied June 16, 1953.

*263 R. C. Reis, St. Louis, for respondent-appellant Joe Cebak.

Renderer, Nolde & Kleinschmidt, John H. Nolde, and Ralph C. Kleinschmidt, St. Louis, for appellant-respondent John Nooter Boiler Works Co.

HOLMAN, Special Judge.

In this proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Law both the employee, Joe Cebak, and the employer, John Nooter Boiler Works Company, have appealed from the judgment of the Circuit Court affirming the final award of the Industrial Commission.

There is no dispute about the fact that the employee sustained an accidental injury on October 7, 1947, while working for the employer. It further appears clear that he has been totally disabled since July, 1949, except for a period of five days that he worked in the fall of that year. The controversy arises principally as a result of the contention of the employer that Cebak's disability was not caused by the accident.

The Industrial Commission made a temporary award on January 4, 1951, allowing the employee compensation for temporary total disability and this compensation was extended by another temporary award dated April 4, 1951. The employer did not comply with either of these awards. After a third hearing the Commission made its final award on February 28, 1952. Temporary total disability was allowed at the rate of $40 per week for 125 6/7 weeks and at the rate of $20 per week for not more than 264 1/7 weeks during the continuance of such disability. Medical expenses in the sum of $344.25 were allowed by the Commission, but it refused to require the employer to pay for medical aid in the sum of $949.52 which had been procured by the employee more than 90 days after the injury and for which no special order of the Commission was obtained. Each of the parties appealed from this award to the Circuit Court.

At the time of his injury Cebak was working as a helper for Elder Beck, a welder. A piece of the welding machine weighing from three to five pounds fell a distance of from six to eight feet and struck him on the top of his head. He was taken to the nurse and received medication. The next day the employer sent him to Dr. Demko for examination and treatment. From the time of the accident until the date of the last hearing Cebak complained of pain in his head radiating from the front toward the back. He further testified that he had a whistling in the temporal region; was shaky and nervous; was frequently sick at his stomach and that his neck and left shoulder pained him. At various times he also complained of dizziness, loss of vision and hearing and weakness in his left arm and hand.

From the date of the accident until January, 1949, the employer sent Mr. Cebak to a number of doctors for examination and treatment but he obtained little, if any, relief from the pain he complained of. Thereafter the company refused further medical aid and he has continued to go to various physicians and specialists of his own choosing in his search for a cure or at least relief from the pain.

*264 Except for 10 weeks (for which he received compensation) the employee continued to work from the time of the accident until July 11, 1949. As already indicated, he has received treatment from various physicians from the time of his injury and has been disabled almost continuously since July, 1949. It appears from the evidence that his health was satisfactory prior to the accident and that he had always worked steadily.

Employee was a patient in Desloge Hospital from November 11, 1949, until January 13, 1950. There he was examined by a number of physicians and given various laboratory and clinical tests and treatment. While in the hospital and again on July 25, 1950, he was examined by Dr. Robert W. Woolsey, a neuro-surgeon. Dr. Woolsey testified that he thought the pain was due to a compression of the sensory roots of the first and second cervical nerves which resulted from the injury the employee had received. He found that when drugs were injected into the cervical area that Mr. Cebak would experience temporary relief from the pain in his head. He has received these injections with some regularity since that time. Dr. Woolsey suggested that the patient might receive permanent relief from the pain as a result of an operation severing the cervical nerve roots. The employee was willing to submit to the operation but it was never performed. Other neurologists who testified did not agree with Dr. Woolsey upon the advisability of this procedure. Dr. Woolsey also testified that the employee was unsteady, nervous and neurotic. He was of the opinion that this condition had an organic background dating back to the injury and partially resulted from the fact that the patient had undergone an extended period of illness and pain without being able to obtain a cure.

At the second hearing Dr. Frank Palazzo testified for the employee and related that he had given him a very thorough examination, including many laboratory tests. His diagnosis did not conflict with that of Dr. Woolsey, but contained additional findings. He was of the opinion that the pain was due to cervical occipital neurology and that Mr. Cebak was also suffering from Parkinsonism; that there is a causal connection between the trauma and this Parkinson's disease; that the employee is disabled as a result of the injury.

Dr. Robert Mueller, a psychiatrist and neurologist, testified for the employee at the third hearing. He examined Mr. Cebak on October 29 and November 30, 1951. He was of the opinion that the major cause of the disability was the neurosis, which condition was started by the injury. His conclusion was that the patient could not be employed at that time and the outlook for the future was very poor.

The employer relied principally upon the testimony of Dr. Walter Moore, a psychiatrist and neurologist, who examined the employee twice in 1949 and again in December, 1951. At the first hearing he stated that the employee had symptoms of Parkinson's disease due to arteriosclerosis; that he found no compression of the sensory nerves in the region of the first and second cervical vertebrae and that the headaches were due to his nervousness. His testimony at the third hearing was that he found no more arteriosclerosis than is commensurate with a man of his age, i. e. 58; that at that time Mr. Cebak had some organic disease of the nervous system as shown by the tremor of the right hand over which he has superimposed a severe neurosis; that the neurosis can be attributed to trauma or any other thing; that he has a fixation of invalidism; that he cannot work and the outlook for the future is "guarded to poor"; that it would help the patient to end this litigation.

The scope of our review in a Workmen's Compensation case is limited. We are not permitted to substitute our own judgment on the evidence for that of the Industrial Commission. We are authorized, however, to determine whether the Commission could have reasonably made its findings and reached its result upon consideration of all the evidence before it. If we conclude that the decision is clearly contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence it is our duty to set it aside. Sections 536.140 and 287.490. (Unless otherwise indicated all statutory references *265 are to RSMo 1949, V.A.M.S.). Art. V, Sec. 22, Constitution of Mo.1945; Wood v. Wagner Electric Corp., 355 Mo. 670, 197 S.W.2d 647

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Bluebook (online)
258 S.W.2d 262, 1953 Mo. App. LEXIS 364, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cebak-v-john-nooter-boiler-works-co-moctapp-1953.