22 A.D.2d 978 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1964
This is an appeal by the claimant from a decision of the Workmen’s Compensation Board which reversed a Referee’s decision and award of compensation benefits and disallowed the claim. The decedent, a 72-year-old man, was employed as a cook at the employer’s Boy Scout camp. In July, 1958, while preparing a meal, he turned to walk away from a table where he had been standing and fell to the floor. On subsequent medical and X-ray examinations it was found that he had sustained a fracture of the right femur. As to the facts preceding the fall the decedent’s testimony was vague and fragmentary; he referred to “turning fast”, a “misstep or something” and to one foot’s striking the other. He also said: “I fell — just fell, that’s all. I can’t explain how.” He did claim, however, categorically that his leg was not broken until he fell to the floor. Dr. Farrow, an orthopedic surgeon, had treated the decedent in 1957 for a fracture of the right femur “which was considered at that time to be a pathological fracture through an area of extensive Paget’s disease.” Dr. Farrow stated in his report: “This elderly man shows multiple areas of Paget’s Disease in his bony skeleton, notably in the right femur, where he has sustained three separate pathological fractures at different times.” The last of the three fractures referred to was the fracture here in issue. Dr. Delakanty, who limited his practice to orthopedies, first
