Murphy v. United States Fire Insurance

162 So. 2d 168, 1964 La. App. LEXIS 1453
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 24, 1964
DocketNo. 1095
StatusPublished

This text of 162 So. 2d 168 (Murphy v. United States Fire 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
Murphy v. United States Fire Insurance, 162 So. 2d 168, 1964 La. App. LEXIS 1453 (La. Ct. App. 1964).

Opinion

SAVOY, Judge.

Defendant has appealed to this court from a judgment of the district court awarding plaintiff compensation at the maximum weekly rate authorized under the Workmen’s Compensation Act for total and permanent disability.

Counsel for plaintiff and defendant entered into a stipulation in the instant case to the following effect: that on January 2, 1962, plaintiff was employed at the Pitt Grill, an eating establishment in the City of Lake Charles, Louisiana; that at about 5:00 A.M. on the above date an accident occurred when an automobile driven by an unnamed party crashed into the Pitt Grill causing plaintiff certain injuries. It was also stipulated that the defendant had a standard workmen’s compensation policy in favor of the owner of the Pitt Grill, and that if plaintiff is entitled to compensation, she is entitled to compensation at the maximum rate allowed under the Workmen’s Compensation Act of this State.

The only issue to be determined by this Court is whether plaintiff is entitled to compensation payments beyond October 12, 1962, the date when defendant stopped paying compensation to plaintiff.

Plaintiff suffered physical injuries as a result of the accident. She was seen by Drs. [169]*169Eli Sorkow and Fritz Lacour, general practitioners; Drs. George P. Schneider, Edward W. Phillips, Jr., and Jerome Ambris-ter, orthopedic surgeons; and Dr. Gilíes R. Morin, a psychiatrist. All of the general practitioners and the orthopedic specialists agreed that plaintiff had recovered from her physical injuries of January 2, 1962.

The basic question before this Court is whether plaintiff is presently suffering from a mental condition resulting from the accident and having a causal connection therewith so as to prevent her from returning to and performing the work she was doing prior to the accident, namely, a short order cook.

The only expert on mental illnesses who testified at the trial was Dr. Gilíes R. Morin. Plaintiff was examined by Dr. Morin and complained of pain and stated that she was nervous. He found plaintiff tense with a certain degree of anxiety. The doctor found plaintiff had a schizoid personality which he described as one living a lonely and withdrawn life. When Dr. Morin saw plaintiff on February 27th and March 11th, 1963, he was of the opinion that the accident which she suffered created a marked amount of anxiety, and he felt this was due to plaintiff’s loss of making a living. Plaintiff was again seen by Dr. Morin on August 27, 1963, and he found considerable deterioration from a psychiatric point of view. He did not think plaintiff could return to her former employment.

Upon examination by the court, the following testimony was elicited from Dr. Morin:

“THE COURT: Dr. Morin, let me see if I understand your testimony. In your opinion this lady is suffering from a marked anxiety which was caused by the accident, or in some manner the accident contributed to it.
“THE WITNESS: That’s right, sir.
“THE COURT : And is it your opinion that because of this marked anxiety she is unable to perform her usual work as a fry cook and waitress?
“THE WITNESS: Well, you see, of course, at this point it is difficult to tell. I mean now litigation, I think, plays a role in terms of the anxiety. But I think initially the thing that triggered off the anxiety was this threatened loss of income. Here is a person who has worked hard all of her life, and something happens that she can no longer work. Now this she may have recovered from for a little while. There might have been residuals of it, and then, of course, the litigation and so on is an additional trauma. So at this point it is difficult to say just how much anxiety is litigation, how much is residual from the accident.
“THE COURT: But in your opinion the accident has definitely some effect in causing this anxiety.
“THE WITNESS: In triggering it off, yes, sir.
“THE COURT: Let me ask you this. Anxiety, I am sure, takes all sorts of form. What is it that causes her to not be able to do the work in your opinion ?
“THE WITNESS: For example, there’s a term I used called somatization. What does this mean? This means that the anxiety, this kind of anxiety,—
“THE COURT: Nervousness?
“THE WITNESS : This nervousness is focused in a somatic way. It comes out in a pain or in an ache, or something of that nature, so that the person may not necessarily be tremulous, but there is still a high level of anxiety. This anxiety comes out readily in the psychometric tests. A person can come to me, for example, and say they have terrible pains. This is a subjective thing, and they can say they are nervous, very nervous. Again, this is [170]*170subjective. This is the reason why we always have the psychological tests. Because they are not aware of psychological tests, they don’t know the meaning of it. This is something that is standardized. Of course, it is not as black and white as an X-ray would be, but it comes as close to it as we can in this particular business.
“THE COURT: As I understand it, these pains that Mrs. Murphy described to you, in your opinion they can be ’ explained as the result of the anxiety.
“THE WITNESS: That’s right, sir.
“THE COURT: In fact, in her own mind she is actually suffering these pains.
“THE WITNESS : That’s right. She doesn’t imagine the pain. v
“THE COURT: What’s the difference between that and a traumatic neurosis ?
“THE WITNESS: Well, * * *
“THE COURT: Or conversion hysteria?
“THE WITNESS: Well, number one, we would find instead of the schizoid personality * * *
“THE COURT: What is a schizoid personality?
“THE WITNESS: Schizoid is a person who is a lonely person, generally kind of withdrawn and so on, is not a gregarious kind of out-going person. This is a schizoid, a schizoid adjustment. Had we * * * If it were, say, a conversion reaction, we would have found, instead of a schizoid personality, we would have found a hysterical personality, which gives us an entirely different picture in terms of the psychometric tests.
“THE COURT: In other words, her personality would change from being a withdrawn person to a gregarious person, or * * *
“THE WITNESS: No, no. The teste that we gave her, the different kinds of drawings, for example, that we ask them to do, would be entirely different. The drawings that she presented to us are very primitive. You see this drawing? A hysterical person would not put out this kind of a drawing. The second time that we saw her we felt there was quite a bit of regression. Here is a drawing at this point, see? This is a drawing of a three or four-year-old in terms of psychological development. A hysteric would not come out with this kind of a drawing.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Lambert v. Wolf's, Inc.
132 So. 2d 522 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1961)
Goodley v. Brunet
150 So. 2d 804 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1963)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
162 So. 2d 168, 1964 La. App. LEXIS 1453, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/murphy-v-united-states-fire-insurance-lactapp-1964.