Pradia v. St. Patrick Hospital of Lake Charles

378 So. 2d 576, 1979 La. App. LEXIS 3179
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 19, 1979
DocketNo. 7307
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 378 So. 2d 576 (Pradia v. St. Patrick Hospital of Lake Charles) 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
Pradia v. St. Patrick Hospital of Lake Charles, 378 So. 2d 576, 1979 La. App. LEXIS 3179 (La. Ct. App. 1979).

Opinion

GUIDRY, Judge.

This is a workmen’s compensation case. Defendant-employer, St. Patrick Hospital of Lake Charles, appeals from the trial court’s judgment which held plaintiff-employee, Arnet Ruth Pradia, to be temporarily totally disabled from a work related accident and thus entitled to workmen’s compensation benefits. Additionally, defendant seeks on appeal reversal of the trial court judgment awarding penalties and attorney’s fees. Plaintiff answered defendant’s appeal seeking an increase in attorney’s fees.

[577]*577Defendant assigns as error the trial judge’s findings that (1) plaintiff suffered a job related accident and injury; (2) plaintiff is temporarily totally disabled; and, (3) defendant was arbitrary and capricious in terminating plaintiff’s compensation benefits.

We note at the outset that the trial court’s findings we are now asked to review are to a large degree factual. Therefore, if the evidence which was presented to the trial judge, upon his reasonable ..evaluation . of credibility, furnishes a reasonable factual basis for his findings, we cannot disturb such factual findings, unless the record as a whole shows that they are clearly wrong. Canter v. Koehring Co., 283 So.2d 716 (La.1973); Arceneaux v. Domingue, 365 So.2d 1330 (La.1978).

The record shows that plaintiff was injured twice on January 2, 1977 1, while performing her duties as a bus girl and temporary cook at the St. Patrick Hospital of Lake Charles. First, at 4:30 A.M. when attempting to light a stove, the stove top fell on her right hand. Later, at 10:30 A.M., she was in the process of removing a pan from a steam table when she slipped on the wet floor and fell with her weight on her right hand and wrist. The accident was reported, but plaintiff did not seek medical attention until January 5, 1977, when she went to the emergency room at the hospital complaining of her injured hand and wrist. Plaintiff was told to see her own physician, Dr. Arthur Penton, a general practitioner, who in turn sent her back to the hospital for x-rays and referred her to Dr. Edmund Campbell, an orthopedic surgeon. Although the x-rays were normal, Dr. Campbell found plaintiff’s hand and wrist to be swollen. Plaintiff was put on a regimen of conservative treatment. A short arm cast was applied to her right hand and wrist on January 27, 1977, when a possible fracture of the carpal scaphoid was revealed by x-rays.

Plaintiff was next seen by Dr. Campbell on February 17, 1977, at which time the x-rays were normal and the cast was removed. On February 24, 1977, plaintiff was sent by Dr. Campbell to St. Patrick Hospital for out-patient physical therapy which she received periodically until May 13, 1977. During this time, Dr. Campbell sent a written report to Aetna Casualty Company2 in which he stated that plaintiff had received a spraining injury to the right wrist, complicated by a psychiatric disorder.3 At that time, Dr. Campbell was of the opinion that although plaintiff could not do any significant work, such disability was more psychiatric than orthopedic. After subsequent examinations, on June 27, 1977, Dr. Campbell stated in another report that he thought plaintiff could perform her previous work and on July 21, 1977, Dr. Campbell discharged plaintiff from his care. During the entire course of treatment by Dr. Campbell, including the day of discharge, plaintiff’s right hand was swollen and plaintiff complained of pain.

After being discharged by Dr. Campbell, plaintiff went to another orthopedic surgeon, Dr. William G. Akins on August 29, 1977. Dr. Akins diagnosed plaintiff’s injury as a spraining injury of the right hand with reflex sympathetic dystrophy superimposed. At the time of his initial examination, Dr. Akins recommended multiple scalene blocks [578]*578in order to relieve pain so that plaintiff would be more receptive to the benefits of physical therapy.

At the request of defendant, plaintiff was seen by yet another orthopedist, Dr. Norman P. Morin, on December 16, 1977. Dr. Morin, while of the opinion that plaintiff’s problem with her right hand and arm stemmed from disuse rather than from an actual orthopedic residual, he informed defendant on January 17, 1978, that plaintiff was disabled from returning to her former work.

Plaintiff did not return to work at the hospital after her injury on January 2,1977, and has been unsuccessful at finding other employment which does not aggravate the swelling and pain in her right hand and arm. Plaintiff received workmen’s compensation benefits from January 6,1977 to July 1, 1977, at which time the benefits were terminated.

Defendant initially contends that the trial court erred in finding plaintiff suffered a job related accident on January 2, 1977. In support of this contention defendant argues that this finding of the trial court is based solely on the testimony of plaintiff which is fraught with conflict and inconsistency.

Our review of the record reflects defendant’s contention to be ill founded. Although there were discrepant accounts as to the exact date and manner of plaintiff’s fall, Joseph Weber, a co-employee at the hospital, substantially corroborated plaintiff’s testimony in that he saw plaintiff slip and fall on a wet floor in the hospital’s kitchen. Weber testified that after he assisted plaintiff in getting up, she complained of hurting her arm. Both plaintiff and Mr. Weber testified that she reported the accident on the same day. The hospital records indicate the accident was reported on January 6, 1977, the same day plaintiff was taken under the care of Dr. Campbell for treatment of her injured right hand. All three orthopedists who examined plaintiff agreed that the accident and resulting injury was causally connected to the swelling of plaintiff’s hand and her continuing disability.

The trial court’s finding of an accident and injury is clearly supported by the evidence.

Defendant next contends that the trial court erred in finding plaintiff temporarily totally disabled. Temporary total disability is defined in LSA-R.S. 23:1221(1) which provides as follows:

“Compensation shall be paid under this Chapter in accordance with the following schedule of payments:
(1) For injury producing temporary total disability of an employee to engage in any gainful occupation for wages whether or not the same or a similar occupation as that in which the employee was customarily engaged when injured and whether or not an occupation for which the employee, at the time of injury, was particularly fitted by reason of education, training, and experience, sixty-six and two-thirds per centum of wages during the period of such disability . .

At the time of trial, plaintiff’s right hand was still swollen and plaintiff complained of substantial pain whenever she utilized her right hand in any task. The substantial pain was caused, according to Dr. Akin, by the sympathetic reflex dystrophy which was produced by plaintiff’s fall at the hospital and the trauma she sustained to her right hand. Both Dr. Akin and Dr. Norman P. Morin were of the opinion that plaintiff was unable to resume her former duties at the hospital due to the residuals of her right hand and wrist sprain.

Based upon the expert opinions of Drs.

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

Related

Cobb v. Boswell Sawmill, Inc.
469 So. 2d 407 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1985)
Pradia v. St. Patrick Hospital of Lake Charles
380 So. 2d 99 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1980)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
378 So. 2d 576, 1979 La. App. LEXIS 3179, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pradia-v-st-patrick-hospital-of-lake-charles-lactapp-1979.