185 Pa. Super. 643 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1958
Opinion by
In this workmen’s compensation case both the referee and the board found for the claimant and made an award in his favor. This is an appeal from a judgment entered by the court below sustaining the award. As usual, the only question is whether or not the claimant suffered an accident from which compensable disability resulted.
On April 1, 1953 the claimant was engaged as a common laborer in digging a ditch. The ground in which he was digging was of unusual hardness and the claimant was obliged to put forth extra effort in order to sink his shovel into the ground. While he was so engaged he suddenly discovered bleeding from the
In its opinion the board said: “. . . on January 12, 1955, Judge Hoban stated: ‘It was for the express purpose of gaining further evidence to determine whether claimant’s injury was a normal development of a preexisting pathological condition or whether it was an unexpected and unusual pathological result occurring in the course of ordinary manual labor usual to the employee’s work, that the Board remanded for further investigation.” The board also said: “While attempting to excavate said earth, claimant strained himself to a degree that it caused a complete procidentia of the rectum, which totally disabled him to July 1, 1953.”
We are compelled to agree with appellants that claimant did not suffer an accident in the ordinary lay understanding of that term. To constitute such an accident it must be shown that the work in which
A compensable injury may occur in the course of the normal duties of an employe and without over-exertion, when a strain, sprain or twist causes a break or sudden change in the physical structure or tissues of the body—that is, a fracture of the bone or bony cartilage, or a rupture of the softer tissues: Parks v. Miller Printing Machine Co., 336 Pa. 455, 459, 9 A. 2d 742; Witt v. Witt’s Food Market, 122 Pa. Superior Ct. 557, 186 A. 275; Camilli v. Pa. R. R., 135 Pa. Superior Ct. 510, 513, 514, 7 A. 2d 129; Gavula v. Sims Co., 155 Pa. Superior Ct. 206, 213, 38 A. 2d 482; Owatt v. Rodman’s Beverage, 169 Pa. Superior Ct. 339, 343, 82 A. 2d 255; Landis v. General Motors Corp., 180 Pa. Superior Ct. 332, 335, 336, 119 A. 2d 645, 647; Kracoski v. Bernice White Ash Coal Co., 183 Pa. Superior Ct. 155, 161, 130 A. 2d 190.
Appellants argue that the court below has substituted its finding of an unexpected pathological result for the board’s finding that there was an accident in
Appellants also argue that the claimant had a preexisting condition Avhich was aggravated by a strain Avhich occurred in the usual and ordinary performance of his Avork rather than as a result of an accident in the lay meaning of that term: Turek v. Damalak et al., 161 Pa. Superior Ct. 84, 85, 53 A. 2d 748. This principle is not applicable because the claimant did not have a pre-existing condition. He did have hemorrhoids but there Avas no connection between the hemorrhoids and the procidentia. The testimony of Dr. Timothy Moran, called as an expect by the board, is crystal
It is also argued that because the claimant was 68 years of age, he had a pre-existing weakness of the rectal muscles and that this constituted a pre-existing condition. Dr. Timothy Moran testified: “Whatever pre-existing pathology — degenerative pathology — he had from his age—which we all have to some extent at our age—was aggravated by his work. He might have been doing anything, but he was just doing that. I think it was aggravated by that, and the thing that happened happened because of the strain. He could have been on the toilet forcing—he could have been shoveling snow,—anything.” This was a physical weakness which is common to all men, or most men, of the claimant’s age and is a normal condition and does not in itself bar compensation: Rovere v. Interstate Cemetery Co., 164 Pa. Superior Ct. 233, 63 A. 2d 388. Disability occurring to a normal, healthy workman, with no physical weakness, other than is common to all men, may be compensable through the result of muscular strain or internal lesion in the performance of ordinary manual labor usual to the employe’s work. The claimant in this case did not have a pre-existing condition but he had the ordinary weakness in muscular structure common to most, if not all, men in his age bracket. This is not an exceptional or uncommon condition. It may be pre-existing but it is a condition
Judgment affirmed.