Poinciana Chinaware, Inc. v. Forsythe

136 So. 2d 337
CourtSupreme Court of Florida
DecidedNovember 29, 1961
DocketNos. 31166, 31167
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 136 So. 2d 337 (Poinciana Chinaware, Inc. v. Forsythe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Poinciana Chinaware, Inc. v. Forsythe, 136 So. 2d 337 (Fla. 1961).

Opinion

THOMAS, Justice.

We are considering a petition for certio-rari, filed by the employee, and also one by the employer and carrier, to review an on-der of the Florida Industrial Commission [338]*338which approved an order of a deputy commissioner after modifying it.

The employee, Lillian Forsythe, was injured 29 January 1952 in an accident which arose out of and during her employment with Poinciana Chinaware, Inc. Her injury seemed relatively minor, then complications developed to the extent that attending physicians who in, the beginning thought she was neurotic, finally concluded she was schizophrenic.

The carrier voluntarily paid temporary total disability compensation at the statutory rate for 350 weeks and provided the employee with continuous medical care to such degree that the employee was eventually treated by 16 physicians the last of whom administered to her 18. March 1959.

The petitioners, Poinciana Chinaware, Inc., and American Surety Company, while arguing in their brief that the orders of the deputy commissioner and the full commission were erroneous because the ■' present claim for nursing services was barfed, support the position with the assertion that on 11 September the interested parties.negotiated a settlement of all issues including any claim for nursing services. They contend that an order was entered 18 September ■adjudicating the claim upon its merits based on the stipulation.

Before going to the orders under attack, we pause to analyze the stipulation and the only order before us appearing to approve it. The agreement, signed 11 September 1959, bore the recital that the claimant consequent upon the injury suffered a personality disorder of a permanent and totally disabling character. It was further recited that the parties had entered a stipulation which was approved by then Deputy Commissioner John V. Christie 24 March 1955 the terms of which, except as modified by the present stipulation, were incorporated in it. The first order is not in the record.

There followed a paragraph containing a reference to the total permanent disability of the claimant, but qualified by the divergent views of carrier and claimant, the former maintaining that the disablement extended from the date of injury, and, nota bene, the latter insisting that it began 16 August 1955. It is in the paragraph dealing with this aspect of the case that there appears a reference to composing the disputes of the parties. The precise language is: “[i]n order to settle all pending issues between the parties and to compromise their differences, the parties * * * agree that the claimant became permanently and totally disabled on July 29, 1953, and that she is entitled to * * * compensation * * * from that date.”

The very next paragraph consisted of the statment that the claimant was entitled to “further medical” care as-the nature of her condition required and that the carrier agreed to furnish it upon request.

After a section providing that the Deputy Commissioner, John V. Christie, might decide the question of attorneys! fees it was specified that upon approval of the stipulation by this Deputy Commissioner, the employer through the carrier would pay (1) the agreed compensation, (2) provide the claimant with the future medical care, and (3) pay certain attorneys’ fees.

On 16 September 1959 an order was 'entered by Deputy Commissioner Christie, which is evidently the one said by peti'tioners-employee and petitioners-carrier in their brief to have been dated 18 September 1959 adjudicating the claim on the merits “based on a stipulation.” It carried simply a recital of the stipulation, a finding that the facts were as stipulated, an approval of that agreement and a command that the “parties comply with [its] provisions.”

This background brings us to the point when the present dispute was engendered by a request 30 September 1959, a few days after the stipulation and its approval, that the carrier furnish the claimant with nursing services or some domestic help. Formal request for these benefits was sent two weeks later to the Director of the Florida [339]*339Industrial Commission and the hearing on the request was heard in July of the following year, before J. H. Kaiser, Jr., successor to Deputy Commissioner Christie.

After considering the issues and the testimony relevant to them, the last deputy entered his order 3 November 1960. He determined that all the household chores had to he performed by the husband and daughters of the claimant because the' claimant was unable to perform them due to her mental condition. He referred to testimony of a psychiatrist that the claimant suffered from schizophrenic reaction with apparent brain, damage which was manifested by “confusion, inability to adjust and quick mood swings,” furthermore, that she “suffered from a marked hostility, irritability and depression.” She had threatened suicide and harm to her husband. He thought she was capable of dressing and caring for personal needs, hut should be placed in an institution if she was not supervised at home. In short, the deputy found that the claimant was in need of constant supervision.

Basing his findings on uncontradicted testimony, he concluded that the claimant should have the services of a practical nurse and that her request for them was reasonable. He ordered the employer through the carrier to pay the amount of $25 weekly as a reasonable charge for the service of a nurse. He prescribed such payments should be computed from 30 September 1959 to such time as a change in claimant’s condition should occur.

The employer and carrier applied to the full commission for a review contending that there was no substantial evidence to support the award of money for any nursing services, or, especially, for an allowance for such services from 30 September 1959 to 3 November 1960, or for any periods pri- or to 19 October 1960. The claimant complained in a cross application that the allotment for nursing services should have been $56 weekly'instead of $25.

When the controversy reached the full commission that body decided that the care required was in a nature domestic but that the primary occasion for it was the prevention of danger to the claimant, herself, and that it transcended service which would ordinarily and normally be furnished by the members of her family. The commission thought it was obvious the husband could hot forgo the earning of a livelihood to stay home and attend his wife and, in the circumstances, the other members of the family could not assume that burden. The commission decided the allowance of $25 by the deputy was adequate.

The commission determined, however, that payments for nursing services should begin upon the employment of some one to perform them or, to state it otherwise, there was no authority for, in effect, compensating the family for the care they had already given the claimant.

Founded on the record we have recounted, the petitioners have presented to us two questions for decision: (1) Were the orders of the deputy and the commission erroneous because the claim was barred? and (2) Was the order of the commission erroneous because of lack of substantial competent evidence to support the deputy’s order?

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

Related

Bates v. Cook, Inc.
615 F. Supp. 662 (M.D. Florida, 1984)
Dairies v. LaRose
434 So. 2d 17 (District Court of Appeal of Florida, 1983)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
136 So. 2d 337, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/poinciana-chinaware-inc-v-forsythe-fla-1961.