STANDARD OIL COMPANY, INC. IN KENTUCKY, CANNING PLANT, PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA, PETITIONER,
v.
JAMES P. GAY AND FLORIDA INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION, RESPONDENTS

Fla. | 1960-02-12
TERRELL and ROBERTS, JJ., and McCRARY, Circuit Judge, concur., THOMAS, C. J., dissents.
118 So. 2d 212 Florida Supreme Court (1960) Negative Treatment
Cited by 14 cases

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Synopsis

Standard Oil Company challenged a Florida Industrial Commission order awarding workers' compensation to an employee who suffered a heart attack (angina pectoris) while performing work duties. The Florida Supreme Court affirmed the commission's award, holding that uncontradicted medical evidence established a causal connection between the employee's work-related exertion and his cardiac episode.


Holding

The court held that the deputy commissioner's finding of no causal connection was erroneous and unsupported by competent substantial evidence. Where uncontradicted medical testimony establishes that work-related exertion precipitated or aggravated a pre-existing disease materially contributing to disability, the employee is entitled to workers' compensation coverage. An employer who hires an employee with a pre-existing disease assumes the risk that employment-related injury will accelerate or aggravate that condition.


Key Quotes

“Where an employer hires an employee inflicted with a disease, and the employee subsequently receives an injury under such circumstances that he might have appealed to the Workmen's Compensation Act for relief had there been no disease involved, and the injury aggravates or accelerates the progress of the disease materially contributing to hasten its culmination in disability, he is covered by the act.”

Establishes the core holding that employers assume the risk of aggravating pre-existing conditions through work-related injury

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Facts & Procedural History

James Gay, employed by Standard Oil Company of Kentucky at a canning plant in Panama City, Florida, sustained a heart attack on November 3, 1958, whil…

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Opinion of the Court
DREW, Justice.

DREW, Justice.

Petitioner seeks review of an order of the full commission vacating and setting aside an order of the deputy commissioner denying the claim of the respondent Gay (claimant below).

Claimant, according to the uncontrovert-ed facts, sustained a heart attack on November 3, 1958 while employed by Standard Oil Co. of Kentucky. On the morning of the aforementioned date, claimant began work at about 5 :00 a. m. The job consisted of watching cases of oil, weighing about 48 pounds, being conveyed on a belt. Claimant’s duty was to see that the cases containing quart cans of oil were properly filled, and in the event the cans were put in the cases cross wise or in some other unacceptable manner, he would lift the case off the belt, straighten the cans and lift the case back up on the belt for a continuance of its journey. During the course of his work on that particular morning, claimant felt a pain in his left shoulder area, but he continued to work until the pain became so great he could not continue. That morning the claimant had lifted from ten to fifteen cases from the belt, straightened cans and returned the cases to the belt. At the time Standard Oil Company, Inc. hired claimant, he was afflicted with arteriosclerosis. The pain experienced by the claimant at the time of his disability was diagnosed as angina pectoris.

The only question to be resolved is whether there is any competent substantial evidence which accords with logic and reason to sustain the deputy commissioner’s finding that there is no causal connection between claimant’s employment and his attack of angina pectoris which, it is conceded, is the pain resulting from arterio-sclerotic heart disease and acute coronary insufficiency.

The full commission on review concluded claimant’s disability was causally related to his employment and that the deputy commissioner’s findings of fact were not supported by competent substantial evidence and that the order of the deputy commissioner did not accord with the essential requirements of the law with*214in the meaning of United States Casualty Co. v. Maryland Casualty Co., Fla.1951, 55 So.2d 741.1

The deputy commissioner’s order reveals that he had before him testimony of two medical witnesses, which was not contradicted by either lay or medical evidence, and from which proper reasonable deductions were not made.2 All of the medical evidence was that the probable cause of the claimant’s attack of angina pectoris was the result of exertion engaged in by the claimant on the morning of the attack. Obviously, then, the conclusion of the deputy commissioner to the contrary was against the manifest weight of that evidence and was, therefore, erroneous.3

Where an employer hires an employee inflicted with a disease, and the employee subsequently receives an injury under such circumstances that he might have appealed to the Workmen’s Compensation Act (F.S.A. § 440.01 et seq.) for relief had there been no disease involved, and the injury aggravates or accelerates the progress of the disease materially contributing to hasten its culmination in disability, he is covered by the act.4

It is, of course, possible that the claimant -could have sustained his attack of angina pectoris from exertion in other activities outside his employment. The record, however, does not reveal this to be the case. The only evidence on the point submitted was on the exertion during the course of the claimant’s employment. The apparent assumption of the deputy commissioner that, because of nothing unusual' occurring that morning, coupled with a *215pain in claimant’s left shoulder and arm before commencing work that morning, the injury was not compensable, cannot be considered as “competent and substantial evidence” as required by our decisions.

Where the testimony and evidence are uncontradicted, a finding contrary to the manifest weight of such testimony and evidence could not be said to be supported by competent substantial evidence.5

The petition for certiorari be and the same is hereby denied.

TERRELL and ROBERTS, JJ., and McCRARY, Circuit Judge, concur.

THOMAS, C. J., dissents.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

  • Victor Wine & Liquor, Inc. v. Beasley, 141 So. 2d 581 (Fla. 1961)
    …urance and then found that there was no accident and the claimant had not been exposed to a danger not ordinarily risked by the public. The only instance in which we find any support for claimant’s contention is Standard Oil Co., Inc. v. Gay, Fla., 118 So. 2d 212 where the claimant was watching and lifting cases of oil cans off a conveyor and thereafter suffered an attack of angina. Upon scrutiny, we conclude that the award of compensation was there made because there was no evidence or testimony to negate t…
    1 / 3
  • Evans v. Fla. Indus. Comm'n, 196 So. 2d 748 (Fla. 1967)
    …481, 18 So. 2d 255; Cleary Bros. Const. Co. v. Nobles, 1945, 156 Fla. 408, 23 So. 2d 525; Borden’s Dairy v. Zanders, Fla. 1949, 42 So. 2d 539; Andrews v. C.B.S. Division, Maule Industries, Fla.1960, 118 So. 2d 206; Standard Oil Co. v. Gay, Fla.1960, 118 So. 2d 212. The broad difference between our earlier and later opinions involving apportionment under Sec. 440.02(19), as well as the interpretation given the section by the commission in this case, has convinced us that we should re-examine the statute and i…
  • …v. Bowen, 380 So. 2d 481 (Fla. 1st DCA 1980). Where the testimony and evidence are uncontra-dicted, a finding contrary to the manifest weight of such testimony and evidence is not supported by competent substantial evidence. Standard Oil Co. v. Gay, 118 So. 2d 212 (Fla.1960); see Willingham v. Boynton Service Corp., 383 So. 2d 710 (Fla. 1st DCA), rev. denied, 392 So. 2d 1372 (Fla. 1980). In the instant case, the deputy commissioner’s finding of no causal relationship between the industrial accident and psych…

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