Grubbs v. Revell Furniture Co.

106 So. 2d 390, 234 Miss. 319, 1958 Miss. LEXIS 494
Mississippi Supreme Court·Decided November 10, 1958·No. No. 40904·Published·Cited by 4 cases

Opinion

Hall, J.

This is a workmen’s compensation case. The claimant, T. L. Grubbs was in the employment of Revell Furniture Company and on May 26, 1955, he sustained an injury in the course of his employment.

At that time Mr. T. B. Revell, Sr. was the sole owner of the business, which owned two different stores in Grenada and one in Water Valley. The claimant was in the employment of the store at Water Valley. He had no back entrance to the store and the loading and unloading was required to be done on the street at the front of the store which was in the business section. On May 25th, the company, having previously decided to move the store from Water Valley to Grenada, was engaged in [321] loading a number of washing machines weighing 150 to 170 pounds each.

The claimant had no help at this store and he got the machines out on the sidewalk with the aid of a truck, and he was then required to pick up and lift the machines by bodily strength and place them on a pickup truck. He was a small man only five feet six inches tall and weighing 125 pounds, and the load was more than he could safely handle, so that his back sustained a serious injury or a prior weakness was aggravated.

On May 26th about the middle of the afternoon he went to see a doctor in Water Yalley who examined him and found a severe tenderness in the back, with muscular spasm, and he testified that the pain was very severe, in fact so much so that he gave the claimant a shot of an opiate and instructed him to go back to the store and stay there for several hours. He said that the main trouble was in the fourth lumbar vertebra and the sacral joint. It was his opinion that the symptoms which he found indicated a slipped disc but recommended that he be examined by a specialist in that line.

The opiate put the claimant to sleep at a time when he was sitting at his desk and he slumped over and was found in that condition by the night policeman shortly before dark, who, with the aid of someone else, placed the claimant upon a bed in the store and sent for the doctor who came and said that the claimant was unable to drive his truck back to Grenada that night where his family lived, and they telephoned his wife at Grenada, who, with her daughter, came and got him.

On the next day the claimant instructed his wife to go and report the matter to the Revell Furniture Company, and he returned to Water Yalley.

A doctor in Grenada who treated the claimant several years previously testified that the claimant had a bad back but he admitted on cross-examination that a back like the claimant’s has more tendency to damage from lifting.

[322] The claimánt went to and was examined by Dr. George D. Purvis of Jackson, Mississippi, who was not used as a witness but he wrote a letter as to his findings which is in the file of the Commission, and in which he rated the claimant as having a permanent partial disability of 15% to 20%.

Section 6998-08, Sub Par. (b) provides that the Commission may cause the claimant to be examined by a physician selected by it in order to obtain a report containing his estimate of the disability and pursuant to this section, the attorney-referee, not being fully satisfied as to what degree of disability the claimant had suffered, had the claimant examined by Dr. W. T. Oakes who filed a report in writing with the Commission, which is in the file, to the effect that the claimant has tenderness at the lumbo sacral joint and that he can bend forward only 50% of normal and laterally only about 75% of normal, and that in his opinion the patient has a genuine complaint and that he would estimate his permanent disability at about 20%.

Dr. Oakes neglected to sign this letter but it is in the file of the Commission and is on the stationery of the Commission. The appellee makes mention of the fact that Dr. Oakes did not sign his letter in person but that it is signed only on the typewriter, and we merely mention the letter, not for the purpose of approving it as evidence, but to show a compliance with the request of the attorney-referee for an examination.

The attorney-referee found as a fact that the claimant was employed by the Revell Furniture Company at an average weekly wage of $75, that he had suffered an accidental injury which arose out of and in the course and scope of his employment, and that the company had notices of said accidental injury within the time required under the provisions of the Mississippi Workmen’s Compensation law, and that he was partially and permanently disabled to the extent of 15% to the body as a whole, and [323] that such disability has resulted in a loss of 17% wage-earning capacity and that since May 26,1955, Ms earMng capacity has been and is $62.32 per week. We think the evidence amply justifies all of these findings, and on the basis thereof the attorney-referee awarded compensation to the claimant for permanent partial disability as provided by Section 8 (c) (21) of the Mississippi Workmen’s Compensation law.

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Grubbs v. Revell Furniture Co., 106 So. 2d 390, 234 Miss. 319, 1958 Miss. LEXIS 494 (Mich. 1958).

106 So. 2d 390 (Grubbs v. Revell Furniture Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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