Kraft v. Himsel Stock Yards

139 N.E.2d 569, 127 Ind. App. 238, 1957 Ind. App. LEXIS 132
CourtIndiana Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 22, 1957
Docket18,854
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 139 N.E.2d 569 (Kraft v. Himsel Stock Yards) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Indiana Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kraft v. Himsel Stock Yards, 139 N.E.2d 569, 127 Ind. App. 238, 1957 Ind. App. LEXIS 132 (Ind. Ct. App. 1957).

Opinion

Bowen, C. J.

This is an application for review of an award of the Full Industrial Board.

The appellant’s Form 9 application for compensation prayed an award of compensation for an alleged acci *240 dental injury which the appellant claims arose out of and in the course of his employment by the appellee Stock Yards company, by reason of his being shoved, pushed, and stepped on by hogs, and developing therefrom a blood clot in his right foot necessitating the amputation of his right leg above the knee. The Hearing Member entered his order finding that the appellant did not sustain an accidental injury in the course of his employment, and upon a petition for review before the Full Industrial Board the Full Board determined that appellant did not sustain an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment. On the basis of such finding the Full Industrial Board made an award that appellant take nothing on his Form 9 application for compensation.

Error assigned for reversal is that the award of the Full Industrial Board is contrary to law.

The sole question for our determination, therefore, is whether the evidence submitted to the Board leads inescapably to a conclusion contrary to that reached by the Board. If it does not then the award must be affirmed. Wilson v. Indiana Gas & Water Company (1955), 126 Ind. App. 302, 130 N. E. 2d 498.

From the facts in the record before us most favorable to appellee it appears that appellant, who was 74 years of age, was a helper at the stockyards operated by appellee. That the appellant was a patient of one Dr. Charles Klamer, a physician and surgeon. That said doctor was called to the appellant’s home to treat him for a painful right leg. That at the time he was in bed, and stated that his leg had been hurting him for two or three days. The appellant’s leg was red and inflamed and moderately edematous, and showed signs and symptoms of a circulatory disorder. Dr. Klamer had treated the appellant for a vascular heart disease associated with arteriosclerosis for several years, and appellant suffered from auricular *241 fibrillation for some five or six years, a condition which results in frequent plural thrombi being formed that sometimes break off and go to various parts of the body in the arterial circulation. The appellant related a history of pain in his right leg for which such doctor prescribed an analgesic for some supportive treatment of his heart. The appellant suffered mild congestive heart failure at the time and soaks were made with packs for his heart. Dr. Klamer testified that his diagnosis at the time he first examined appellant was embolism, popliteal artery of the right calf. The appellant was hospitalized some thirty days thereafter, and the doctor continued the previous treatment that he had been prescribing prior to appellant’s hospitalization, and also put him on antibiotics. His condition degenerated and he had severe pain of his entire right foot and leg up to the knee. Such doctor determined that it was necessary to amputate his leg. The leg was gangrenous before it was amputated and the blood vessels were sclerosed and clotted. Dr. Klamer testified that arteriosclerosis and auricular fibrillation are connected more frequently with age, and that appellant had predisposing factors for these conditions. That such condition can occur at any time when the individual is either moving about or at rest. That it does not necessarily depend upon movement, and could occur in sleep or while a person is sitting down or up and about. Dr. Klamer testified he saw no sign of injury and that auricular fibrillation and arteriosclerosis were involved and present. This attending physician further testified that the appellant did not give a history of an injury at any time. That the appellant stated to him while he was working at the Himsel Stock Yards he suffered an acute pain in his right leg and that he had to sit down, but he gave the doctor no history of a hog stepping on him. The doctor testified that there was no question of this man having arteriosclerosis, and having *242 his leg amputated gave him no history at any time of an accident, and the doctor found no signs of an accidental injury.

Dr. Henry J. Faul, who was called by the appellee, testified in response to hypothetical questions that the condition of which appellant complained was not traumatic in origin. Dr. Faul also testified that if an injury had occurred to appellant’s foot or toe it would be most unlikely and improbable that a thrombus would have formed between the knee and ankle of appellant, and that the thrombus occurred by reason of appellant’s auricular fibrillation. Dr. Faul also testified that if a trauma was incurred sufficiently severe to cause a clot in the popliteal artery, which lies deep under several layers of muscle, that the injury would have to be severe, and that there would have to be some external evidence of such an injury, including marked discoloration, lacerations, contusions, black and blueness resulting from oozing of blood from damaged blood vessels into tissues of skin, and that if the leg did not turn black until some weeks after the alleged injury, and if there was no evidence of discoloration to the foot or leg two or three days after the injury, that then there was no trauma which caused the condition.

It seems clear from the foregoing testimony that there was substantive evidence of probative value sufficient to have justified the Full Industrial Board in concluding that the appellant did not sustain an accidental injury arising out of his employment with appellee, and that the Board’s findings and award thereon is binding upon the Appellate Court. Luckey v. LaSalle Steel Company (1948), 114 Ind. App. 48, 50 N. E. 2d 883.

*243 *242 This court on an application for a review of an award of the Full Industrial Board is controlled by well estab *243 lished rules of procedure declaring that it is the province of the Industrial Board to find the facts, and in determining such ultimate facts such Board may draw any reasonable inferences from the facts proved, and on a review this court must not weigh the evidence nor draw inferences therefrom leading to a different conclusion from that reached by the Industrial Board, unless there is no evidence of probative value which supports the award of the Board under the rules laid down in such cases. Espy v. Indianapolis Power & Light Co. (1932), 94 Ind. App. 184, 180 N. E. 190.

However, the appellant asserts as the principal error relied on that the Industrial Board erred in admitting into evidence the pathology report of one Dr. Rutherford who did not testify as a witness, and that the reading of said report into evidence constituted reversible error in that it was hearsay evidence, and that the other evidence in the case having no connection with or relation to such pathology report when fully considered is insufficient to sustain the finding and award of the Industrial Board, citing the cases of McCoy v. General Glass Corp. (1939), 106 Ind. App. 116, 17 N. E.

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Bluebook (online)
139 N.E.2d 569, 127 Ind. App. 238, 1957 Ind. App. LEXIS 132, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kraft-v-himsel-stock-yards-indctapp-1957.