PRINCE v. Nicholson

91 So. 2d 734, 229 Miss. 718, 1957 Miss. LEXIS 318
CourtMississippi Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 7, 1957
Docket40307
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 91 So. 2d 734 (PRINCE v. Nicholson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Mississippi Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
PRINCE v. Nicholson, 91 So. 2d 734, 229 Miss. 718, 1957 Miss. LEXIS 318 (Mich. 1957).

Opinion

*722 Holmes, J.

This appeal involves a claim of the appellee, Howard Nicholson, against his employer, R. E. Prince, and the latter’s insurance carrier, T. H. Mastín & Company (Consolidated Underwriters), who are appellants here, for compensation benefits under the provisions of the Mississippi Workmen’s Compensation Act as amended. It is the claim of the appellee that while in the employment of the appellant, R. E. Prince, on January 18, 1954, in Noxubee County, Mississippi, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, resulting in a stroke which paralyzed his entire right side, and that said injury arose out of and in the course of his employment and has totally disabled him and is compensable.

After a full hearing, the attorney-referee found that the claimant’s injury arose out of and in the course of his employment and was compensable; that his average weekly wage was $30 per week; that he reached maximum recovery within six month after the date of his stroke; and in accordance therewith, the attorney-referee ordered that the employer and the insurance carrier pay medical benefits as provided in the Act, and pay the claimant compensation at the rate of $20 per week from January 18, 1954 to July 15, 1954, for tempo *723 rary total disability, and $20 per week for permanent total disability from July 16, 1954, not to exceed 450 weeks or the maximum of $8600, whichever shall be the lesser in amount.

On a review of the attorney-referee’s findings and order by the full commission, the said findings and order were affirmed and on appeal to the circuit court the same were likewise affirmed. The circuit court in its order found and adjudged that the employer and carrier both failed to file any notice of their desire to controvert the claimant’s claim and made no report of the claimant’s injury for more than fourteen days after he had knowledge of such injury, and it was therefore ordered that in addition to other benefits to be paid to the claimant ten percent thereof be paid in accordance with Subsections (d) and (e) of Section 6998-19, Yol. 5A, Mississippi Code of 1942. It was further ordered by the circuit court that all medical and/or drug, hospital and ambulance expenses incurred and to be incurred as the result of the claimant’s injury be paid, with legal interest from their respective due dates. It was further recited in the order of the circuit court that an attorney’s fee of forty percent of the sums recovered be allowed claimant’s attorney for his services pursuant to a contract entered into between the claimant and his attorney. This appeal is prosecuted from the judgment of the circuit court.

On January 18, 1954, the appellant, R. E. Prince, was operating a sawmill in Noxubee County, Mississippi. The claimant, who was then 62 years of age, was employed to work at said mill and the duties of his employment required him to roll logs from a ramp to make them available for the saw carriage, which duties the claimant performed by the use of a cant hook. The claimant had been working for his employer, according to the testimony of the employer, for a period of approximately nine months prior to the date of the injury, *724 and according to tire testimony of the claimant, for a period of approximately two years prior to the date of the injury. On the morning of January 18, 1954, it was cold and the ground was frozen. The claimant reported for work at about seven o’clock in the morning and began his duties as a log-ramper. During the course of his work it was observed by some of his co-workers that he was sweating. The mill had been operating from fifteen minutes to an hour, as variously estimated by the witnesses, when the saw struck a nail and it was necessary to discontinue the sawmill operations and file the saw. The claimant, with other co-workers, went a short distance to a sawdust pile where there was a fire. The claimant had put on his wife’s stockings that morning for warmth. He sat down on the sawdust pile by the fire and removed one of his shoes for the purpose of warming his foot. One of his co-workers began to joke him about having on his wife’s stockings. It was all in good humor and no one was mad. The claimant put his shoe back on and about that time one of the co-workers in the mill, Ed Brookshire, started to walk by the claimant, who was then sitting on the sawdust pile. The claimant reached or grabbed for the leg or pants leg of Brook-shire, causing Brookshire to stumble and fall and the claimant immediately fell back exclaiming that his arm was broken and that his head was bursting. It was first thought by his co-workers that he was joking, but it was soon discovered that he was in severe pain, suffering pain in his right arm and in his neck and that he had a marked stiffness of the neck, and that he had suffered paralysis in his right leg and right arm. He was taken in a truck to a hospital in Macon, where he was first attended by Dr. J. W. G-rossnickle. Dr. Gross-nickle then sent him to the Charity Hospital in Jackson where Dr. Jack H. Phillips was called in as a consultant and examined him. He also went to the Matty Hersee Hospital in Meridian where he was attended by Dr. E. Zinke.

*725 Dr. Grossniclde, a witness for the claimant, testified that in his opinion the claimant’s work was a contributing canse of the stroke and that the stroke followed a cerebral hemorrhage. Dr. Phillips, a witness for the employer and carrier, testified that the canse of the stroke was most likely a cerebral vascular accident, hut that he would not say that the activities of the claimant’s employment caused the hemorrhage, nor would he say that it did not cause the hemorrhage. Dr. Charles Neill of Jackson, Mississippi, a witness for the employer and carrier, examined the claimant on April 1, 1955. He at first was of the opinion that the stroke was caused by a thrombosis and that if such was the cause of the stroke it was not causally connected with the claimant’s employment. Upon being advised, however, that the claimant experienced a stiffness of the neck from the onset of the attack, Dr. Neill expressed it as his opinion that the claimant had suffered a cerebral vascular accident, and that his employment on January 18, 1954 was a contributing factor to the attack. Dr. E. Zinke, testifying as a witness for the employer and the carrier, expressed the opinion that there was no causal connection between the claimant’s employment and the stroke which he suffered. On cross-examination, however, in response to a question as to whether or not the claimant’s labor contributed in some degree to the precipitation of the stroke, he said that, he thought it contributed in some degree.

The appellants contend that the proof is wholly insufficient to show any causal connection between the claimant’s work and his attack, and that, therefore, the findings and order of the commission are not supported by substantial evidence and should be reversed. We are of the opinion that the record does not sustain the appellants in this contention. The overwhelming weight of the medical testimony shows that the employment in which the claimant was engaged was a contrib *726 uting cause of bis attack.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
91 So. 2d 734, 229 Miss. 718, 1957 Miss. LEXIS 318, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/prince-v-nicholson-miss-1957.