Young v. Scotia Coal Co.

464 S.W.2d 796, 1971 Ky. LEXIS 496
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedMarch 5, 1971
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 464 S.W.2d 796 (Young v. Scotia Coal Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Young v. Scotia Coal Co., 464 S.W.2d 796, 1971 Ky. LEXIS 496 (Ky. Ct. App. 1971).

Opinion

DAVIS, Commissioner.

This is a workmen’s compensation proceeding involving three appeals numbered V-74-70, V-97-70, and V-l 14-70, all of which will be disposed of in this opinion.

Lauville Gibson filed his claim for workmen’s compensation asserting entitlement to permanent total disability benefits from Scotia Coal Company and/or Blue Diamond Coal Company occasioned by an alleged work-connected injury sustained on November 3, 1967. The Special Fund was [797]*797made party to the proceeding in light of evidence indicating the possible necessity for apportionment. The Board found that Gibson had sustained a work-connected injury on November 3, 1967, resulting in temporary total disability from that date until January S, 1968, and awarded recovery of compensation for that period against Scotia. The Board further found Gibson to have sustained permanent partial disability of 80% from January 5, 1968. The Board concluded that one-half of Gibson’s permanent partial disability resulted from his injury of November 3, 1967, without reference to any previous disability or dormant, nondisabling, disease condition. Responsibility for that portion of the disability was placed upon the employer. The Board concluded that the other half of the permanent partial disability resulted from the arousal into disabling reality by the injury of November 3, 1967, of a dormant, nondisabling, disease condition imposing liability on the Special Fund on that account.

All parties to the proceeding sought review of the Board’s award in the circuit court. The circuit court affirmed the decision of the Board in all respects, from which judgment an original appeal was filed by the Special Fund, and cross-appeals have been filed by the claimant Gibson and by Scotia, his employer.

The Special Fund contends that there was no basis for the Board’s imposing any portion of the award on it, since Gibson’s pre-existing condition was a degenerative disc condition, not a disease condition. It relies upon this court’s ruling in Young v. City Bus Company, Ky., 450 S.W.2d 510.

The employer contends that the claim for compensation should have been dismissed since it was filed too late. KRS 342.270. The employer alternatively contends that the apportionment, as provided by the Board, should be upheld if the court rules adversely on its defense of the statute of limitation.

The employee, Gibson, maintains that the award should be increased to allow him benefits for total permanent disability, expressing the view that the Board properly apportioned part of the liability upon the Special Fund, although asserting that he is entitled to full recovery from either the Special Fund and the employer or the employer alone.

The Board found as fact that Gibson sustained a work-connected injury on November 3, 1967. There was substantial evidence to support that finding, although a contrary finding would have been permissible. Gibson’s claim for compensation was mailed from Whitesburg on Friday, November 1, 1968, and it was stipulated that the claim would have been received at Frankfort, for delivery in the regular course of the mail on Saturday, November 2, 1968. The Workmen’s Compensation Board does not maintain office hours or receive mail on Saturdays or Sundays, so the application was received and filed by the Board on Monday, November 4, 1968, too late, according to the explicit provisions of KRS 342.270. Deeming itself bound by Mary Gail Coal Company v. Rhodes, Ky., 284 S.W.2d 97, the Board held that the claim was timely filed. The employer contends that the decision in the Rhodes case was predicated on the lack of notice to the general public of the Board’s practice of the closing on Saturdays without receiving any mail. The employer reasons that the effect of the Rhodes case was to put everyone on notice of this practice by the Board so that the present employee is in a different posture from that of Rhodes. On the other hand, the employee contends that he had a right to rely on the rule of law as announced in Rhodes so that the Board properly rejected the plea of limitation. In the circumstances, the court is of the view that the Board properly rejected the plea of limitation on the strength of Mary Gail Coal Company v. Rhodes. It is noteworthy that CR 6.01 and KRS 446.030(1) (a), as recently [798]*798amended, specifically provide that the last day of a time period is to be included in computing the period unless it is a Saturday, a Sunday, or a legal holiday, in which event the period runs until the end of the next day which is not a Saturday, a Sunday, or a legal holiday.

The medical testimony, including that of Dr. Robert L. Keisler who was appointed to examine the claimant pursuant to KRS 342.121, reflected that Gibson had a preexisting, degenerative, disc condition which accounted for half of the disability resulting from the work-connected injury. Some of the medical testimony characterized the condition as a nondisabling disease condition. For example, Dr. Stevens, in expressing his finding, testified in part:

“ * * * We made an X-ray examination of his lumbar spine which showed a mild thinning of the lower lumbar spaces with some anterior spur formation or os-teophytosis. There was some mild calcification in the aorta and there was particular thinning of the L-4, 5 interverte-bral disc space.”

Dr. Stevens said that the thinning was generalized in all of the interspaces in the lumbar spine, and when asked to what he attributed the thinning he replied, “To chronic degenerative disc disease.” The question was propounded to Dr. Stevens, “Was this what is frequently termed a dormant, nondisabling disease condition as revealed by X-ray?” to which he replied, “It can be, yes, sir.”

Dr. Keisler, the Board-appointed physician under KRS 342.121, in his report and in his deposition, spoke of finding a preexisting latent condition in Gibson’s spine, but he did not describe the pre-existing condition as a nondisabling disease condition. On deposition, he stated: “I assumed that some of the changes that I saw on X-ray represent changes of aging and previous alteration of the spine, and arbitrarily estimated that one half of this problem pre-existed and one half is a result of the injury.”

In reading the opinion and award of the Board, it is apparent that the Board regarded Gibson’s pre-existing condition as attributable to the natural aging process. However, the Board noted that some of the medical testimony had characterized the condition as a “disease” condition, although it erroneously stated that Dr. Keis-ler so characterized it. Dr. Keisler did not describe the condition as a disease condition. The following excerpt from the Board’s opinion fairly discloses the Board’s real findings concerning the nature of the pre-existing condition:

“Dr. Keisler also found, as did Dr. David B.

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Young v. Gardner Oldsmobile, Inc.
464 S.W.2d 802 (Court of Appeals of Kentucky, 1971)

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Bluebook (online)
464 S.W.2d 796, 1971 Ky. LEXIS 496, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/young-v-scotia-coal-co-kyctapp-1971.