Toland v. Murphy Bros.

94 A.2d 156, 172 Pa. Super. 484, 1953 Pa. Super. LEXIS 382
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedJanuary 20, 1953
DocketAppeals, Nos. 100 and 101
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 94 A.2d 156 (Toland v. Murphy Bros.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Toland v. Murphy Bros., 94 A.2d 156, 172 Pa. Super. 484, 1953 Pa. Super. LEXIS 382 (Pa. Ct. App. 1953).

Opinion

Opinion by

Reno, J.,

The employer and insurance carrier appealed from an order of the. court below sustaining the findings of [486]*486the Workmen’s Compensation Board which awarded compensation to claimant for a total disability resulting from a heat stroke and $2,051.50 for nursing services.1

The basic question is whether the heat stroke which claimant admittedly suffered while at work on July 29, 1949, was an accident within the meaning of the Pennsylvania Workmen’s Compensation Act of June 21, 1939, P. L. 520, §301 (c), as amended, 77 P.S. §411.

Claimant, aged 38, in robust health, except for a possible arthritic condition, was a painter, working at his trade at a new printing plant in Wayne, a suburb of Philadelphia. A meteorologist employed by the United States Weather Bureau testified that the temperature in the Philadelphia area on July 28 and July 29, 1949 was in the middle 90’s, 10 degrees above normal, and reached 95 on July 28th and 96 on July 29th. On July 28th claimant was painting on the outside of the plant; and at noon, the heat having become stifling, he stated that he was not feeling well, and was driven to his home by a fellow workman who had also quit his work for the same reason. During the evening a thunderstorm cooled the temperature to 71 degrees and the next morning claimant returned to his work, apparently fully recovered from the slight indisposition of the preceding day.

. On July 29th claimant alone was painting the interior walls of a toilet room, (3 feet 8 inches wide, 6 feet 9 inches long, 9 feet from floor to ceiling) in the one-story plant, with a slag roof, without shade above it or ventilation or circulating air in it. The toilet [487]*487room was part of a wash room (15 feet long by 6 feet 9 inches wide) which had no windows or ventilators but did have three doors, none of which led to the outside, and with little or no circulation of air. After eating his lunch on the outside, he resumed his work, and an hour later stumbled through the swinging doors into the wash room where he became unconscious. His fellow workmen attempted to revive him without success and he was taken to the Bryn Mawr Hospital where his rectal temperature registered 109 degrees, and was found to be in a critical condition. Perspiration ceased, congestion of his vital organs followed, and eventually his condition was diagnosed as encephalopathy, a destruction of basal ganglia in the brain.2 He was transferred to the Valley Forge Army Hospital and has remained a helpless and perhaps a hopeless charge in veteran’s institutions ever since.

This brief paraphrase of the Board’s findings must be supplemented by excerpts from the medical testimony. Three doctors were called by the claimant and unanimously declared that he had suffered a heat stroke. Dr. Luigi A. Principato, the chief medical resident at the Bryn Mawr Hospital, who attended the claimant, in describing the causes for heat stroke, referred to “excessive amount of heat and inadequate air circulation.” Dr. George Wilson testified: “I think that working in that place without ventilation and in a very small area such as that one that you have depicted, I should say that was certainly very contributing.” Under cross-examination he testified: “This, of course, is difficult to prove but it is generally accepted that if it is hot and humid and no circulation of air that there is more of a tendency toward these heat [488]*488conditions than there is if the temperature, let us say, is higher and you are outside and there is a little wind blowing.” Fixing the time when the heat stroke occurred, Dr. Benjamin A. Gouley testified: “On the basis of the man’s medical history, on the basis of sudden collapse, coma, being taken soon thereafter to a hospital where his temperature was found to be 109 degrees, it is my opinion that the man suffered from a heat stroke. Q. Caused on what date? A. On that date, yes. Q. On July 29th? A. Oh, yes. It occurred on July 29th.”

On the basis of all the testimony the Board found “that the claimant was subjected to conditions somewhat more intolerable than the public generally.” The finding is supported by the evidence and is binding upon this Court.

Appellants argue that the heat stroke was not an accident, that it resulted from a protracted exposure to the prevailing heat of two days, and was not a sudden, unexpected event. The contention is based partially upon the testimony of Dr. Principato who placed the onset of the heat stroke at noon of the preceding day. His testimony, however, was based in part upon statements allegedly made by claimant’s brother and sister-in-law while claimant was in a coma. The statements were clearly hearsay to which timely objection was entered, and they afforded no basis for a medical opinion as to the cause of the injury.3 Moreover, they were denied by the brother and his wife. The conflict in the medical testimony produced by Dr. Principato was resolved by the Board against appellant’s conten[489]*489tion, and it was authorized to weigh the evidence, to determine the credibility of the witnesses, and draw reasonable inferences. Williams v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 155 Pa. Superior Ct. 435, 38 A. 2d 343.

At all events, claimant did not suffer a heat stroke on July 28th. The accepted medical testimony is that a coma is the invariable concomitant of heat prostration, and certainly there was none on July 28th. It does not seem possible that a man should suffer heat strokes on two successive days, but if so, the heat stroke of July 28th was plainly suffered in the course of claimant’s employment. The rational view of the case, established by the evidence, is that on July 28th claimant discovered that work on the outside in the direct rays of the sun was too oppressive and he quit for the day. On the following day, refreshed by his rest and cooled by the thunderstorm, he returned to his work in a normal condition, and while painting in a tiny room, without circulating air, he was overcome by the heat and collapsed. That he was subjected to conditions differing from those of his co-workers is shown by the fact that none of them succumbed during that day. In the words of Parks v. Miller Printing Machine Co., 336 Pa. 455, 459, 9 A. 2d 742, claimant’s right to recover rests “upon the theory that the prostration is not the natural, probable and predictable result of an exposure to the prevailing conditions, but constitutes an extraordinary and unlooked-for mishap visited suddenly upon the employe while at work.”4

Trovato v. McCahan Sugar Refining Co., 122 Pa. Superior Ct. 499, 186 A. 163, appellants’ principal reliance, is irrelevant to this factual situation. There, the question was whether the employe’s exposure to [490]*490unusually high temperatures occurred in the course of his employment in the employer’s boiler room or on the outside of the plant and not in the course of his employment. That is to say, the question was whether the conditions causing the heat stroke were experienced by the employe while he was at work or outside of working hours. Here we do not meet that question. Claimant’s reactions to heat were experienced only while he was working; first, on July 28th when he left his work because of the heat and retired to his home; and second, on July 29th when he collapsed while at work.

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Bluebook (online)
94 A.2d 156, 172 Pa. Super. 484, 1953 Pa. Super. LEXIS 382, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/toland-v-murphy-bros-pasuperct-1953.