Moen v. Peter Kiewit & Sons' Co.

655 P.2d 482, 201 Mont. 425, 1982 Mont. LEXIS 995
Montana Supreme Court·Decided December 13, 1982·No. Nos. 81-106, 82-29·Published·Cited by 26 cases

Opinion

MR. JUSTICE WEBER

delivered the opinion of the Court.

These cases have been consolidated for consideration, as both cases involve claims for an employee’s death by heart attack. We affirm the lower courts in both cases.

In Case I, Supreme Court No. 82-29, claimant Moen appeals from the order of the Workers’ Compensation Court, granting defendant’s motion to quash her petition for a hearing. Claimant Moen presents two issues to this Court:

[428]*428(1) Whether defendant’s motion to quash was procedurally acceptable.

(2) Whether newly discovered evidence supports Violette Moen’s request for a new hearing.

The defendant argues that this case is res judicata.

In Case II, Supreme Court No. 81-106, plaintiff Moen appeals from an adverse jury verdict in the Thirteenth Judicial District Court, Yellowstone County, in her negligence action for the wrongful death of her husband. Moen raises the following issues for review:

(1) Did the District Court err by not allowing Mike Moen’s widow to testify regarding her telephone conversation with Mike Moen the night before his death?

(2) Did the District Court err by allowing James McCarthy to testify regarding what Mike Moen did not say before Moen left for the hospital?

(3) Was the jury properly instructed?

Defendant cross-appeals, contending that the District Court erred in not granting its motion for directed verdict.

Virgil (Mike) Moen was 63 years old and had worked as an oiler for Decker Coal Company for three years, when, on Saturday, November 1, 1975, an overtime day, he suffered a heart attack which led to his death in the Sheridan, Wyoming, hospital, early the next morning.

Moen had stayed in Decker Friday night instead of returning to Great Falls, as he usually did, to spend the weekend with his family. On Saturday morning, shortly after 8:00 a.m. at the request of his supervisor, Delmar Bradway, Moen returned to the Decker mine to work overtime steam cleaning the engines and transmissions of a number of large Terex scrapers. There were nine scrapers, but two were being repaired, and the testimony conflicts as to whether Moen cleaned seven or nine. Because the morning was frosty, Moen was not able to start steaming until about 10:00 a.m. Co-workers testified that a conscientious worker, such as Moen was admitted to be, ordinarily would take 30 to 45 minutes to clean each scraper, yet Moen was finished [429]*429by noon. According to Bradway, who was the only employee working with Moen in the afternoon, the two men worked from about 1:00 to 3:30 p.m. steam cleaning the batteries and radiators of the same scrapers, with Moen driving the pickup upon which the steamer rode, and Bradway, the supervisor, doing the steaming itself. Other workers declared they had never seen Bradway do dirty work while a worker sat in the truck and that it was contrary to union policy and rules.

About 3:30 p.m., as Bradway was leaving, he noticed Moen standing beside the raised hood of his pickup; Bradway asked if anything was wrong. He noticed that Moen was changing oil, and when Moen answered no, he was all right, Bradway departed. Bradway also testified that Moen never complained of pain or exhibited any signs of illness. Moen’s time card for November 1, 1975, is signed; the space wherein an employee must indicate an on-shift accident is marked “no” and initialed with Moen’s initials.

James McCarthy, a close friend and co-worker of Moen’s at Decker Coal, also runs the Decker store and post office, some five miles below the mine. He testified that about 3:50 or 4:50 p.m., Moen appeared at his store and the two men talked about going into town (Sheridan, Wyoming, about 30 miles away). McCarthy stated that he excused himself to continue working on a pump in the cellar, but Moen sought him out:

“There was a knock on the door, and I came up from the cellar. And he asked me if I would drive him to town; never again stating there was anything the matter with him but he just didn’t feel that — you know he wanted to go to town. I says, ‘I’ll be with you in about ten minutes, as soon as I put the web back into the pump.’ So it must have been about 20 minutes later that I came up. Never even checked on him, went into the bathroom and cleaned up and came out to go with him, and he was gone.
“Q. The last time that you saw him did he appear to you to be seriously ill?
[430]*430“A. No. I will say this, he was pale. In other words, he didn’t look like the regular Mike full of vim and vigor.”

Moen drove himself to Memorial Hospital in Sheridan, arriving about 5:30 p.m. He told the attending physician that at about 2:00 p.m. that day he had begun to feel severe pain in the left side of his chest, with pain radiating down his left arm. The pain increased in intensity for about 15 minutes, then continued at about the same intensity. Moen’s condition was diagnosed as acute interior myocardial infarction. Treatment failed to relieve Moen’s pain, which continued severe until, after administration of morphine, he fell asleep at about 10:00 p.m. At about 2:30 a.m., nurses noted a “dusky” coloring often associated with “pump failure” — inability of the heart to perform due to the extent of muscle tissue impairment — and, following a breakdown of the normal sinus pattern, Moen died at 3:35 a.m.

Mike Moen’s widow, Violette Moen, filed a claim for workers’ compensation on September 27, 1976. Decker Coal Company denied the claim on the grounds that there was no causal relationship between Mike Moen’s employment and his fatal heart attack. Following hearing and briefing, on January 29, 1979, the Workers’ Compensation Court found Decker Coal Company liable to Mike Moen’s widow for benefits. During that trial in the Workers’ Compensation Court, Delmar Bradway was asked whether or not the work involved in steam cleaning equipment was more or less taxing than an oiler’s ordinary work. Bradway replied:

“A. It is easier than the regular ordinary duties in this case because he didn’t have to climb around or do anything like that. . .”

Somewhat later in that trial, the following dialogue occurred:

“Q. During that day [November 1, 1975] did you see Mike do any running?
“A. No, I never noticed any.
“Q. Any climbing?
“A. No, he was doing the steaming because the transmis[431]*431sions are low and their engines are fairly low because he was doing the steaming from the ground, and to cover that many engines in this time, why you just can’t do too good a job on anything else.
“Q. Was there any occasion for him to climb stairs?
“A. None.”

This Court reversed on appeal, holding that claimant had not met her burden of proving Mike Moen’s death had been the result of “a tangible happening of a traumatic nature from an unexpected cause or unusual strain.” Moen v. Decker Coal Co. (1979), Mont., 604 P.2d 765, 36 St.Rep. 2220.

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Moen v. Peter Kiewit & Sons' Co., 655 P.2d 482, 201 Mont. 425, 1982 Mont. LEXIS 995 (Mo. 1982).

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