Travelers Insurance Company v. Evans

425 S.W.2d 611, 221 Tenn. 199, 25 McCanless 199, 1968 Tenn. LEXIS 457
CourtTennessee Supreme Court
DecidedMarch 6, 1968
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 425 S.W.2d 611 (Travelers Insurance Company v. Evans) 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
Travelers Insurance Company v. Evans, 425 S.W.2d 611, 221 Tenn. 199, 25 McCanless 199, 1968 Tenn. LEXIS 457 (Tenn. 1968).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Chattin

delivered the opinion of the Court.

*202 This is an appeal from a judgment of the trial judge granting workmen’s compensation benefits to Mrs. Ruth Evans for the death of her husband, Arthur E. Evans, due to a heart attack.

Mrs. Evans will be referred to as petitioner, The Travelers Insurance Company and International Printing Pressmen & Assistants’ Union of North America will be referred to as defendants.

Defendants insist there is no material evidence in the record to show the death of Evans arose out of or in the course of his employment.

Petitioner insists there is material evidence to support the finding of the trial judge her husband’s death due to a heart attack arose out of and in the course of his employment.

The facts are undisputed. The deceased was an employee of the International Printing Pressman & Assistants’ Union of North America and was for many years editor and manager of Specialty Workers Magazine.

Approximately one year prior to his death, he had symptoms of a heart condition which continued until his death.

A few weeks prior to his death he had been required to stay in Kingsport, Tennessee, where a strike involving the Union was in progress. In addition to his duties as editor of the magazine, he was required to work night and day attending conferences with respect to problems of the strike. While in Kingsport he worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day five days a week.

On April 4, 1963, deceased went to Nashville to attend a Union convention, which convened at nine A.M., on *203 April 5, 1963. He was a staff officer of the Union. All officers and delegates to the convention were required to stay at the Andrew Jackson Hotel, where the convention was to be held. Deceased was not required to take his meals at the hotel. He, as well as all the officers and delegates of the Union, were free to have their meals at any restaurant of their choice. The Union paid all expenses of the officers and delegates incurred during the convention.

Anthony DeAndrade, President of the Union, testified he was the direct supervisor of deceased and assigned to him his duties. That it was deceased’s duty to address the convention; and to meet with delegates to the convention during the evening after the adjournment of the convention, which was usually at five P.M. That Evans was subject to he called to duty at all hours of the day while attending the convention.

Deceased attended the convention on April 5, 1963, which convened at nine A.M., and adjourned at nine P.M. He was last seen alive at ten P.M., that date in the hotel. The convention was to re-convene at nine A.M., on April 6, 1963.

Deceased died from a heart attack on a street in Nashville on the morning of April 6, 1963, some time prior to eight A.M.

A death certificate filed in the record shows his death was “immediate” and he was fifty-two years of age.

A two-page hypothetical question was read to Dr. "William A. Wiley. The question recited the duties of Evans while at Kingsport and at the convention. He was asked if the work he had performed in Kingsport and *204 Nashville conld or might have aggravated his heart condition and hastened his death. He answered it conld have.

The trial judge found deceased’s heart condition was aggravated as a result of his employment due to stress, strain, anxiety and work entailing long hours of work and very little rest; and that the cause of his death arose out of and in the course of his employment.

“[The phrase], ‘in the course of,’ refers to time and place, and ‘arising out of,’ to cause or origin; and an injury, by accident to an employee is, ‘in the course of’ employment if it occurred while he was performing a duty he was employed to do; and it is an injury ‘arising out of’ employment if caused by a hazard incident to such employment.” Shubert v. Steelman, 214 Tenn. 102, 377 S.W.2d 940 (1964).
“The injury received must arise ‘out of’ the employment as well as ‘in the course of’ employment.” McAdams v. Canale, 200 Tenn. 655, 294 S.W.2d 696 (1956).

It was incumbent upon petitioner to show the death of her husband was occasioned by an accidental injury which has been defined as being an unusual, fortuitous, or unexpected happening, causing an injury which was accidental in character; and that such accident and injury grew out of and in the course of his employment. Smith v. Tenn. Furn. Ind., Inc., 212 Tenn. 291, 369 S.W.2d 721 (1963).

There is no proof deceased was at the time of the fatal heart attack performing any duty which he was employed to do.

Nevertheless, petitioner insists the presumption prevails deceased was performing a duty at the time of his *205 fatal heart attack because he was subject to call to duty during all hours of the day.

Petitioner relies on the rule stated in Crane Rental Service v. Rutledge, 219 Tenn. 433, 410 S.W.2d 418 (1966), as follows:

“A presumption may arise that an accidental injury received by an employee arose out of and in the course of employment, as where the employee is found injured or dead under circumstances indicating that injury or death occurred within the time and space limits of the employment; but such presumption is rebuttable and disappears on the introduction of evidence to the contrary. * * * Generally, the presumption is that an employee was following the usual course of carrying out the employer’s business at the time of injury, and there is a natural presumption that one charged with the performance of a duty and injured while executing his superior’s orders, is injured in the course of, or as a consequence of, the employment. Likewise, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the presumption or inference will be indulged in that injury or death arose out of the employment where the employee is found injured at the place where his duty may have required him to be, or where the employee is found dead under circumstances indicating that death took place within the time and space limits of the employment, as in the case of a night watchman found dead at his post, or a miner found dead under wheels of a mine car. Such presumptions are rebuttable and they disappear on the introduction of evidence to the contrary.” 100 C.J.S. Workmen’s Compensation sec. 513, pages 462, 463, 464 and 465.

*206 . In that case, Rutledge was driving a truck with a trailer on which was a boom to be delivered to a construction site..

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Bluebook (online)
425 S.W.2d 611, 221 Tenn. 199, 25 McCanless 199, 1968 Tenn. LEXIS 457, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/travelers-insurance-company-v-evans-tenn-1968.