Wallace v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co.

68 So. 2d 685, 1953 La. App. LEXIS 867
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedNovember 13, 1953
DocketNo. 3740
StatusPublished

This text of 68 So. 2d 685 (Wallace v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co.) 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
Wallace v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 68 So. 2d 685, 1953 La. App. LEXIS 867 (La. Ct. App. 1953).

Opinion

ELLIS, Judge.

This is a suit arising out of an accident which occurred July 18, 1951, brought uh-der the Employers Liability Act by James Dean Wallace on behalf of his minor son, Richard E. Wallace, an employee of K-way Maintenance Company who became of age and was substituted as party-plaintiff, against Aetna Casualty an'd Surety Company, the employer’s compensation insurer.

The petition claims total and permanent disability and maximum compensation of $30 per week for a period of 400 weeks, subject to a credit for payments already made, and for legal interest on past due payments, maximum medical payments, penalties and attorney’s fees.

Payment of compensation was discontinued on September 15, 1952 when the plaintiff was discharged by the attending physician and suit was filed on November 12, 1952.

The case was duly tried and a decision handed down by the District Court awarding plaintiff compensation for permanent partial disability at the rate of $5.20 per week for a period not to exceed 239 weeks. (61 weeks of temporary total disability compensation were paid), plus $500 medical expenses, penalties on unpaid installments, and $350 as attorney’s fees.

The defendant acquiesced iti this judgment and made payments thereunder. The plaintiff has appealed, maintaining the trial court was in error in not having awarded judgment as prayed for.

Plaintiff, appellant, bases his motion to remand upon the fact that there was evidence in the record to the effect that plaintiff had been examined and found physically fit for induction into the Armed Services through Selective Service, but that subsequent to the trial of. this cause, when he was ordered to report for induction' he was found to be physically disabled and qualified for limited service only. The motion states [687]*687plaintiff has reason to believe that the evidence in the record showing plaintiff had been approved for induction was a material factor in the mind of the trial judge in causing him to render the judgment herein, and he believes in the interest of justice the case should be remanded for further evidence upon this point.

Remands are governed in this Court by Article 906 of the Code of Practice, which reads as follows:

“But if the court shall think it not possible to pronounce definitively on the cause, in the state in which it is, either because the parties have failed to adduce the necessary testimony, or because the inferior court refuse to receive it, or otherwise, it may, according to circumstances, remand the cause to the lower court, with instructions as to the testimony which it shall receive, to the end that it may decide according to law.”

The language which follows is found in McClung v. Delta Shipbuilding Co., Inc., La.App., 33 So.2d 438, 443:

“An appellate court should remand a cause whenever the nature and extent of the proceedings require it, and such action is largely within the court’s discretion, and should be exercised according to the peculiar exigencies of the particular case. This is especially true when such action is consonant with the ends of justice.”

There are numerous authorities cited in the McClung case, and there the cause was remanded for the reception of additional evidence upon plaintiff’s disability. Here, however, an examination of the record leads to the conclusion that this- case can be properly adjudicated upon the record as it is now constituted, and any additional evidence upon plaintiff’s disability as connected with his induction into the Armed Services would be merely cumulative and additional. See Blackburn v. Chenet, La.App., 42 So.2d 288.

The motion to remand is, therefore, denied.

There is no dispute as to plaintiff’s employment, the_ occurrence of the accident, the wage rate, the extent of the initial injuries, nor the fact that he was totally disabled for a period of 61 weeks. Neither is there a dispute that medical expenses in excess of the statutory maximum were incurred. Payments for temporary total disability were admittedly paid until plaintiff was discharged by his physician, September IS, 1952.

The real dispute is as to the extent of plaintiff’s residual disability and its effect upon his ability to work. This, of course, involves the question -as to whether the nature of the work plaintiff was performing was his usual occupation for which he was fitted by training and experience, and whether his work was skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled in its nature.

The work in which plaintiff was engaged at the time of the -accident consisted of cleaning, scraping, buffing, and applying a priming coat of paint on steel tanks approximately 30 to 40 feet high. In performing these operations plaintiff had to use a pneumatic driven buffing machine, a scraper, and would then, of course, have to apply the prime coat of paint upon the cleaned steel.

Platform stages or scaffolding approximately 16 feet long and one and one-half feet wide were used to reach the parts of the tanks to be treated. These were supported by brackets fixed to ropes which ran in two sets of block and tackle attached to the top of the tanks to allow the necessary lowering -and raising of the platform. Plaintiff fell when this scaffolding gave way due to some failure of the attaching ropes, breaking his right femur, spraining his ankles, bruising his elbows and suffering lacerations on his chin, some chipped teeth and other miscellaneous injuries. The fractured femur healed satisfactorily but with some rotation of the lower fragment outward, which causes his right foot to rotate more towards the right and away from the [688]*688center of plaintiff’s body, some 25 to 30 degrees.

Because of this residual disability plaintiff now contends he is unable to do work of any reasonable character or that for which he is suited by training and experience, and that consequently, within the purview' of the Workmen’s ¡Compensation Laws he is totally and permanently disabled. He claims this disability renders him no longer “sure-footed” and that consequently he cannot determine exactly What his right foot and leg are doing by his sense of feeling alone and that the work which he was doing at the time of the accident required a nice sense of balance and that since he has lost these as a result of the injuries, he can no longer perform this type of work.

Plaintiff admitted the work in which he was engaged at the time of the injury, was temporary. He had been engaged about six weeks prior to his injury and planned to continue it only until the opening of Louisiana State University in September, a period of six or eight more weeks from, the date of the accident. When he finished high school he was employed as an ambulance driver’s assistant and had also been employed reading water meters. He had definitely had no training or experience in this type of work..

The medical testimony seems to be in complete agreement, Dr. Dowell estimated permanent partial disability at 20% which was based as against 100% use of the leg and not 20%, disability to perform work. This doctor also stated he would pass the plaintiff for industrial employment and that plaintiff could perform the same type of work that he had performed prior to the injury.

Dr. Sabatier also stated he would pass the plaintiff for industrial employment and that plaintiff in his opinion could return to the type of work he had been performing at the time of the accident.

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McClung v. Delta Shipbuilding Co.
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68 So. 2d 685, 1953 La. App. LEXIS 867, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wallace-v-aetna-cas-sur-co-lactapp-1953.