218 A.D. 451 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1926
Lead Opinion
The claim is for death benefits and is made by the widow of James F. Thompson, who was the janitor of a school. The city of Binghamton is the employer. Thompson’s duties were to perform the usual work of a janitor and, in ease of a fire alarm at the schoolhouse, to go there. On Sunday, April 6, 1924, there was such a fire alarm. Though in fact there was no fire, the alarm was real. Thompson was at home at the time, but was called and taken to the school building in an automobile. When he reached the school building he hurried in as fast as he could. It was perhaps thirty feet from where the automobile stopped to the door. He unlocked the door, went down a pair of stairs and into the boiler room. He was very much excited; two alarm bells were ringing, one in the boiler room and one upstairs. He attempted to disconnect the electric system from the bell in the boiler room, but was so nervous that he could not do it; Heslip, who was with him, disconnected it. Thompson sat down, but very soon started out into the corridor. Instead of going upstairs to shut off the other alarm, he went into the boys’ lavatory; he was walking with a cane. Heslip heard the cane drop and looked in time to see Thompson fall. It was in the neighborhood of five minutes from the time the boiler room alarm was shut off until he dropped. It is but a short distance from the boiler room into the boys’ toilet where he fell. The whole distance he walked was possibly 150 feet. He had been for two years or more suffering from heart trouble and hardening of the arteries. There was testimony by physicians that the circumstances described — the fire alarm, his hurrying to the school building in answer thereto, his activities, and nervous excitement — were sufficient causes to bring on an acute attack of dilation of the heart and death. The finding is that his already weakened heart, because of chronic myocarditis, gave out, and caused him to die a short while after he had reached the school building, his death being naturally and unavoidably the result of the unusual excitement — and unusual strain and exertion, to which he was subjected when called upon to answer said fire alarm.
The one objection to the award is that Thompson did not receive an accidental injury within the meaning of the Workmen’s Compensation Law. For a well man he made no excessive physical exertion, was subjected to no excessive physical strain. He suffered no traumatic injury of any kind. But he had a diseased heart
The award should be affirmed, with costs.
All concur, except H. T. Kellogg, J., dissenting -with an opinion.
Dissenting Opinion
Mr. Justice Van Kirk is clearly asking us to overrule our decision in O’Connell v. Adirondack Electric Power Corp. (193 App. Div. 582). He seems to think that the decision in that case is not consistent with our later decision in Pickerell v. Schumacher (215 App. Div. 745). If there be an inconsistency in the two holdings it seems to me that the decision in the Pickerell case should yield to the decision in the O’Connell case rather than that the latter should yield to the former. It was held in the Pickerell case that a claimant suffering from cerebral apoplexy caused by fright and excitement might recover compensation from his employer although he sustained no physical injury. The decision was clearly in conflict with the decision in Mitchell v. Rochester Railway Co. (151 N. Y. 107). In that case Judge Martin, writing for the court, stated the law as follows: “ While the authorities are not harmonious upon this question, we think the most rehable and better considered cases, as well as public policy, fully justify us in holding that the plaintiff cannot recover for injuries occasioned by fright, as there was no immediate personal injury.” The question was one of proximate cause. Surely if, in a negligence case, no causal relation can be found between an accident and damages caused by pure fright, no such relation can be discovered, where the facts are the same, in a workmen’s
Award affirmed, with costs to the State Industrial Board.