Sheffield v. Schneider Services International, Inc.

800 S.W.2d 174, 1990 Tenn. LEXIS 432
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedNovember 19, 1990
StatusPublished

This text of 800 S.W.2d 174 (Sheffield v. Schneider Services International, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Tennessee Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sheffield v. Schneider Services International, Inc., 800 S.W.2d 174, 1990 Tenn. LEXIS 432 (Tenn. 1990).

Opinion

OPINION

FONES, Justice.

Defendants appeal from an award of workers’ compensation benefits, which included a 60 percent permanent partial disability of Plaintiff’s right lower extremity and a 20 percent disability to the body as a whole, based upon an alleged injury to Plaintiff’s chest.

It is not disputed that Plaintiff sustained an injury to his leg as a result of an injury at work on 23 October 1985. The major issue raised by Defendants is their contention that Plaintiff did not injure his chest in the work accident on 23 October, and that the episode of pneumonia and pleural effusion, that had its onset on 12 November 1985, had its origin in Plaintiff’s preexisting sickle cell disease.

Plaintiff was employed as a laborer at the Arnold Air Force Base in Tullahoma, where his employer, Schneider Services International, was a contractor. A fiberglass condensate line required repair, behind the A & E Building. Plaintiff, two pipe fitters, and a backhoe with operator were dispatched to the site. A hole approximately nine and one-half feet by nine feet wide and five, six or seven feet deep was dug by the backhoe. The backhoe operator provided steps on one of the walls and when the pipe was appropriately exposed so that Plaintiff could complete preparation of the area for the pipe fitters to work, Plaintiff descended into the hole with his shovel. Shortly after he reached the bottom of the hole, a quantity of dirt on the wall behind him slid into the bottom of the hole and covered his right foot and leg, according to the backhoe operator, to the top of his four or five buckle galoshes. He was pushed forward and turned his upper body to look behind him, according to the witnesses, but was not knocked down and was able to pull his foot and leg out of the dirt and walk out of the hole without assistance. He said that his leg was hurting and Mr. Farris, one of the pipe fitters, drove him to the dispensary.

At the dispensary he was seen by Dr. Reynolds Fite, who recorded what Plaintiff told him had happened, as follows:

Employee states that he was behind the A & E Building working on a seven-foot deep ditch and the ditch started to cave in and employee jumped twisting his right knee.

Dr. Fite testified at the trial and said that Plaintiff did not complain of any other injury and the report that he filled out listed as the only complaint, “pain in right knee.”

Dr. Fite sent Plaintiff to Hartón Hospital by ambulance and arranged to have Plaintiff seen by Dr. Ramprasad, who specialized in orthopedics. Plaintiff gave the same history, that a ditch caved in and he had pain in the right knee and foot. X-rays showed there was, “a question of a fracture of the head of the fibula.” Dr. Ram-prasad treated Plaintiff conservatively with medication, rest and crutches, and had him return to his office on 28 October 1985, 1 November and 8 November. During this period Plaintiff did not work and lived with his sister. Dr. Ramprasad testified that on [176]*176the 8 November visit Plaintiff had no swelling, no tenderness and was able to walk without pain and he told Plaintiff that he could return to work on 11 November 1985.

However, Plaintiff did not return to work on that date. He testified that he was coughing, aching, his wind was short, his voice, “started to leave me,” and he thought he was coming down with a cold. On 12 November 1985 he went to Dr. Jerry Kennedy’s office in Tullahoma. After a brief examination, Dr. Kennedy took Plaintiff to Hartón Hospital in Tullahoma and after further examinations, X-rays, etc., Plaintiff was sent to St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville. Dr. Kennedy did not testify. Plaintiff testified that Dr. Kennedy told him that they did not have the facilities at Hartón Hospital to take care of his problem.

At St. Thomas Hospital Plaintiff was under the care of Dr. R.M. Rodriguez. At the time he saw Plaintiff he was board certified in internal medicine. Two years later, before he testified, he became board certified in internal medicine — pulmonary.

Dr. Rodriguez’s initial report dated 12 November 1985, Exhibit 2 to his deposition, begins with the same history Plaintiff had given Drs. Fite and Ramprasad and the accident description portion ended with the following sentence: “He had no trauma to his chest.” The report noted that hematology and laboratory data was “suggestive” of “hemoglobinopathies,” and he suspected that his injury was unrelated to his acute pneumonia and pulmonary fluid and infection.

Dr. Fite testified that he was the company doctor and one of his primary duties was to tell the company whether or not its employees were able to work. The record also reveals that employees at the base are required to take periodic physical exams, probably annual. Plaintiff had worked at the base for 13 years and Dr. Fite had custody of Plaintiff’s file containing his medical history. He testified that Plaintiff had sickle cell or hemoglobin S and hemoglobin C disease; that both are genetically determined, abnormal hemoglobins; that hemoglobin S distorts the shape of the red cell so that it is more easily plumped and hemolyzed; that hemoglobin C crystallizes easily and renders the cell more vulnerable to hemolysis or breakdown; that when S & C exist in the same patient the result is a more severe disease. He testified that Plaintiff had lost the vision in his right eye because the combination of the abnormal hemoglobins had caused proliferation of elements of the retina and hemorrhage. He also said that “it’s been known for a good many years that patients with sickle-cell disease are more vulnerable to pneumonia.” He was of the opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Plaintiff’s episode of pneumonia and pleural effusion for which he was hospitalized at St. Thomas on 12 November 1985 was caused by sickle-cell-hemoglobin C disease.

Plaintiff was in St. Thomas Hospital from 12 November 1985 until 8 December. They placed tubes to drain the infected fluid that had collected between the lung tissue and the chest wall, the pleural space. However, they were unable to clear out all of the fluid until he was taken to the operating room where a thoracotomy was performed. That operation involved opening up the chest by prying ribs apart, but they succeeded in removing the fluid and clearing up the infection.

On 11 December 1985 Dr. Rodriguez wrote to Dr. Kennedy about the course of treatment that Plaintiff had received while under his care. He stated that Plaintiff, “had a peri-pneumonic effusion secondary to bacterial pneumonia. His sputum cultures and bronchial washings grew staph, aureus. — His anemia at the time of presentation was hemolytic in origin, most likely due to his SC disease.”

Under date of 8 August 1986, Dr. Rodriguez wrote a letter, “TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN” in regard to Plaintiff’s hospitalization at St. Thomas, wherein he said, in part:

His history began approximately a week or so prior to admission to St. Thomas Hospital, at which time he had an accident while on the job. This accident resulted in injury to his leg and possible injury to his chest. This injury [177]*177may have also contributed to a subsequent effusion. He may have had a significant amount of pain located in his right hemothorax subsequent to his fall which resulted in splinting and therefore poor mobilization of secretions. If this is the case, he could have certainly developed pneumonia on that basis.

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Related

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699 S.W.2d 147 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1985)

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Bluebook (online)
800 S.W.2d 174, 1990 Tenn. LEXIS 432, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sheffield-v-schneider-services-international-inc-tenn-1990.