Guidry v. Serigny

370 So. 2d 904, 1979 La. App. LEXIS 3819
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 16, 1979
DocketNo. 12413
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 370 So. 2d 904 (Guidry v. Serigny) 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
Guidry v. Serigny, 370 So. 2d 904, 1979 La. App. LEXIS 3819 (La. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinions

LOTTINGER, Judge.

This is a workmen’s compensation suit, in which Mrs. Eula Marie Guidry is seeking benefits for permanent total disability, plus penalties and attorneys’ fees, arising out of an accident which happened on December 2, 1975. After the trial on the merits, judgment was rendered dismissing plaintiff’s suit and she has appealed.

Mrs. Guidry was employed as a cook by Conrad Serigny, who was the owner and operator of Leeville Seafood Restaurant and Lounge. On the morning of December 2, 1975, she fell, either because she fainted or had a heart attack or because she slipped on a wet or slick floor. At the trial, Mrs. Guidry testified that she slipped because the floor was newly waxed. The histories taken by various doctors in the case furnish the other versions of how the accident happened.

After the accident, she was unconscious, and was taken by ambulance to Our Lady of the Sea Hospital in Galliano, Louisiana, where she was seen in the emergency room by Dr. William Maroma, who, at that time, specialized in internal medicine and cardiology, although not board certified. His diagnosis was heart failure and syncope. A Dr. George also examined plaintiff because of complaints of back pain, and diagnosed a mild low back strain or sprain.

Dr. Maroma based his diagnosis, in part, on a history that Mrs. Guidry had suffered [905]*905from heart disease in the past and was taking Digoxin for her heart. Dr. Maroma did not recall from whom he had obtained the history. Mrs. Guidry denied any history of heart disease, and stated that she had never been given medication for a heart condition. She testified that she had taken nitroglycerin for shortness of breath following a gallbladder operation. No direct evidence of a previous heart condition is in the record, and none of the other doctors who subsequently examined Mrs. Guidry found any abnormality relating to her heart or its function. Dr. Maroma had not seen Mrs. Guidry since her discharge from the hospital on December 5, 1975, and was unable to venture an opinion as to any disability arising from her heart condition.

In denying recovery, the trial court found that “plaintiff’s fall was not the result of a waxed or wet floor but was the natural consequence of plaintiff fainting.” He also found that “the evidence introduced was not sufficient to prove that the heart attack or fainting spell was brought about because of the exertion of her employment or any duties in connection therewith.” He then held that since plaintiff failed to show a causal relationship between her employment and the fainting spell, she was not entitled to recover workmen’s compensation benefits. We do not find that the trial judge was manifestly erroneous in his findings of fact.

We think it clear from the record that Mrs. Guidry has failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that she is disabled because of a heart condition. No one, including, Dr. Maroma, testified to that effect.

It is equally clear that plaintiff injured her back, and was, for a time, disabled as a result thereof. The main question presented by this appeal is whether the injury resulted from an accident “arising out of and in the course of” plaintiff’s employment. La.R.S. 28:1031.

The two leading cases on the question of whether an accident “arises out of” the employment are Myers v. Louisiana Ry. & Nav. Co., 140 La. 937, 74 So. 256 (1917) and Kern v. Southport Mill, 174 La. 432, 141 So. 19 (1932). The Myers case has been cited for the proposition that an accident arises out of the employment if “the risk from which the injury resulted was greater for the workman than for a person not engaged in the employment.” In the Kern case, the court said:

“In determining, therefore, whether an accident ‘arose out of’ the employment, it is necessary to consider only this: (1) Was the employee then engaged about his employer’s business and not merely pursuing his own business or pleasure; and (2) did the necessities of that employer’s business reasonably require that the employee be at the place of the accident at the time the accident occurred?”

It would appear that the holding of the Kern case is so broad as to include any accidental injury to an employee, from whatever cause, which occurs while he is engaged in the duties of his occupation. However, we note that the limitation of the Myers case is still applied by our courts.

As this court noted in Hull v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, 236 So.2d 847, 853 (La.App. 1st Cir. 1970), writ refused 256 La. 862, 239 So.2d 361 (1970):

“Professor Wex S. Malone in Louisiana Workmen’s Compensation Law and Practice considers at Chapter 9, § 198, the risk created by the physical peculiarity of an employee. In this section, the author discusses the employee who because of some physical infirmity ‘may be more subject to accident than a normal employee’ and propounds the question as to whether or not the risks which are attributable to such afflictions arise out of the claimant’s employment. On this subject he states:
‘For present purposes it is assumed that the worker has met with an ordinary traumatic accident, as by falling or burning himself, and that the consequences for which he is seeking compensation are the normal effects of such an accident. In such a case the employer may claim that the accident must be attributed to the affliction and not to the nature of the employment.
[906]*906This position was sometimes adopted in the earlier English and American decisions. A carpenter who was seized with an attack of epilepsy and fell thirty-nine feet to the ground was denied compensation by the California court,20
and in Massachusetts a worker who suffered lapses of memory and wandered into a swamp where he contracted pneumonia was similarly treated.21
There are other early decisions in accord,22 although the cases were never
harmonious.23
In later years the rule has become established that an accident which would otherwise be compensable does not cease to arise out of the employment because it can be attributed in part to a physical infirmity of the employee. The usual explanation advanced in the modern cases is that the fall or blow is the direct proximate cause of the injury or death and that the existing susceptibility is only a remote factor.24
This may be true even though the conditions of the employment do not expose the employee to any special danger from falling.25
The rule applies a fortiori where the danger from falling is greater for the employee than for one not so employed, as where he is required to work at a considerable height from the ground or around fires or other dangers.26
The liberal rule described above prevails in Louisiana according to two court of appeal decisions. In Ryland v. R & P Construction Company27 com-
pensation was allowed claimant, a night watchman, who was seized with an attack of epilepsy and fell into a fire which he had built to keep himself warn.

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Related

Guidry v. Serigny
385 So. 2d 295 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1980)
Guidry v. Serigny
372 So. 2d 1056 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1979)

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Bluebook (online)
370 So. 2d 904, 1979 La. App. LEXIS 3819, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/guidry-v-serigny-lactapp-1979.