70 A.D.2d 678 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1979
— Appeal from a decision of the Workers’ Compensation Board, filed August 10, 1978. The employer and its insurance carrier appeal from that part of the decision of the board, which awarded death benefits to the widow of the deceased employee based upon findings that the decedent fell while working and a subsequent fatal heart attack was causally related thereto. Decedent, employed as the superintendent of an apartment building, was requested to clean up an oil spill on the stairs between the second and third floors of the building. A witness testified that she saw the decedent going up the stairs to the third floor with a mop and a pail. Although no one saw the decedent fall, he was subsequently found lying in a pool of blood on the third floor with a deep laceration along the side of his jaw. Decedent died a short time thereafter and the certificate of death states that the cause of death was occlusive coronary arteriosclerosis. Decedent