Chance v. American Mutual Liability Insurance

92 So. 2d 493, 1957 La. App. LEXIS 629
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedFebruary 4, 1957
DocketNo. 4343
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 92 So. 2d 493 (Chance v. American Mutual Liability Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Chance v. American Mutual Liability Insurance, 92 So. 2d 493, 1957 La. App. LEXIS 629 (La. Ct. App. 1957).

Opinion

LOTTINGER, Judge.

The trial judge having rendered a most comprehensive and complete opinion in this matter, we adopt it as our own. It reads as follows:

“In this suit, brought under the provisions of the Employers’ Liability Act of Louisiana, now embodied in Title 23, Section 1021, et seq. of the [LSA] Revised Statutes of 1950, plaintiff, alleging that, while in the employ of McMichael Construction Company, hereinafter referred to as the ‘employer,’ whose compensation insurance carrier was the defendant, American Mutual Liability Insurance Company, hereinafter referred to as the ‘Insurer,’ claims to have received accidental personal injuries, totally and permanently disabling him to perform work of any reasonable character, for which he seeks a judgment against the insurer, for compensation, at the rate of $30.00 per week, payable weekly, commencing June 4, 1952, and continuing for the duration of his disability, not to exceed 400 weeks, together with 5% per annum interest on all past due installments, from their respective maturities, until paid.

“Plaintiff’s additional material allegations of fact are that the employer’s business, trade or occupation, in which plaintiff was employed at the time of the accident, May 13, 1952, and in which he was performing services incidental to and arising out of the employment, and for which he was being paid a daily wage of $8.00 per day, was hazardous within the meaning of the compensation law.

“Plaintiff further alleged that the accident occurred in the following manner: That, on or about the date mentioned, while he was working in a ditch, about four feet deep, a heavy wheelbarrow, loaded with cement, accidentally fell about four feet upon him, striking him with great force, and inflicting severe and painful injuries to his back, hips and legs.

“While defendant, in its answer, denied some of the material allegations of fact contained in plaintiff’s petition, it developed on the trial and in its brief, that its actual and sole defenses are (1) that plaintiff received no disabling injury in the accident of May 13, 1952, and, in fact, said accident resulted in nothing more than a scratch on plaintiff’s leg, which caused no loss of time and required no medical attention, (2) that plaintiff has a congenitally weak back, which caused him to leave the employer’s employ long after the accident; that it was then and not until then, that he made a claim for compensation, and (3) that if plaintiff is now disabled, there is no causal connection between that disability and the accident, such disability being due solely to the congenital weakness of his back, which he has.

“The suit was filed April 14, 1953, but plaintiff’s attorneys who filed the suit subsequently withdrew and his present attorneys were substituted. The suit was tried February 9, 1956, but left open for the filing of briefs, the last of which was filed April 2, 1956, and the case submitted as of that date.

“The employer, for whom plaintiff was working, was engaged in the construction of a school building near the town of Lees-ville. At the time of the accident, (and there is no dispute of the fact that an accident did occur) plaintiff was in a ditch, into which wet cement was being poured, by hauling it thereto in wheelbarrows and dumping it therein. Plaintiff was engaged in leveling the wet cement at the bottom of the ditch as part of the building’s foundation. The colored witness, James Watson, one of the laborers engaged in pushing the wheelbarrows, loaded with cement, [495]*495to and dumping it into the ditch, testified that he rolled the wheel of the barrow too close to the edge of the ditch, which caused the edge of the ditch to cave off ‘and the wheelbarrow got loose from me and jammed him (plaintiff) in the ditch.’ Other witnesses, co-workers of plaintiff, testified either to actually seeing the accident happen or assisting to pull the wheelbarrow out of the ditch and extricate plaintiff therefrom.

“There is some conflicting testimony as to the depth of the ditch in which plaintiff was standing.

“The estimates of the several witnesses varied from about two to about four feet. Considering the testimony of the witness who testified on the point, the Court is of the opinion that the ditch was approximately three feet deep. The depth of the ditch may be said to be unimportant, except as a circumstance that may tend to prove or disprove whether, as the accident happened, plaintiff could have been struck on the back and the injuries to his back, of which-he here complains, thereby produced.

“If, as the Court believes the testimony shows, the depth of the hole was no more than three feet, it renders very doubtful that plaintiff’s contention that the wheel barrow struck him on the back, is tenable. The plaintiff, from the Court’s observation of him at the trial, is an average sized man, probably about five feet ten inches in height. If his legs were three feet down into the ditch, no part of his back would have been sufficiently below the surface to have been struck by the wheelbarrow’s front as it pitched down into the hole. It seems more probable that he would have been struck on the legs, and that theory is supported by the admitted fact that his leg was skinned. That the wheelbarrow struck plaintiff on the front, instead of the back, is indicated in the testimony of his witness, Watson, who was the colored man who was pushing the wheelbarrow when it fell into the ditch and the one, other than plaintiff, who was in best position to know what actually happened, at page 41 of the transcript, when he testified,: ‘Q. Well, now, when you say it “jammed him with the wheelbarrow” was the wheelbarrow in front of him? A. Yes sir, i.t was in front in the stomach.’ And it seems to the Court to be more reasonable to believe that with plaintiff standing in the ditch into which the cement was to be dumped from the wheelbarrow, he would have been facing the operation, than to have turned his back upon it.

“Plaintiff’s witness, Whitstine, who was pushing a wheelbarrow, just back of Watson, testified (Tr. 27) that he didn’t know what part of plaintiff’s body was struck by the wheelbarrow.

“Plaintiff’s witness, Boycher, who was foreman on the job, but no longer works for the employer, testified, (Tr. 45) when asked if plaintiff indicated he had been injured, ‘Yes sir, he told me his leg was skint.’ At page 46, on cross examination, the witness testified: ‘Q. You said he told you his leg was skinned? A. He showed me where his leg was skint.’ It is significant that, so far as this witness’ testimony shows, plaintiff made no complaint, immediately after the accident, to the foreman, to whom he showed his skinned leg, of any injury to his back.

“The other witnesses, who assisted in removing the wheelbarrow from the hole, did not remember what, if anything, plaintiff said.

“Mr. Monkhouse, the employer’s superintendent on the job, and to whom plaintiff reported immediately after the accident, called by the defendant as a witness, said plaintiff said he had skinned his leg, ‘between the knee and the ankle on his shin.’ (Tr. 62.) Monkhouse asked plaintiff if he wanted to go to a doctor and he said he didn’t think it would be necessary, whereupon, Monkhouse got the first aid kit and painted the leg with merthiolate and ‘that was all that was done.’ Plaintiff made no demand for compensation at that time or [496]*496at any other time, according to this witness (Tr.

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Bluebook (online)
92 So. 2d 493, 1957 La. App. LEXIS 629, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/chance-v-american-mutual-liability-insurance-lactapp-1957.