21 A.D.2d 434 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1964
Claimant, a vice-president of the employer labor union, was notified that he was relieved of his responsibility and authority as vice-president pending a hearing upon a charge of disobedience to a directive respecting an unauthorized work stoppage or wildcat strike. Upon medical examination two days before the hearing, his physician found “ acute exacerbation of a chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and bronchiectasis ’ ’ and advised him to ‘ ‘ limit his activities to 3 to 4 hours per day”, all of which the doctor embodied in a letter which claimant exhibited to the officer presiding at the hearing. Nevertheless, the hearing proceeded for about 12 hours, with recesses for lunch and dinner. Claimant, being denied the right of representation by counsel, conducted his own defense; and the record of the hearing reflects the stresses and pressures which the board found. At about 4:00 p.m., experiencing chest distress, difficulty in breathing, perspiration and weakness, claimant requested an adjournment but was refused it, and, after a brief respite, the hearing continued until 9:30 p.m., when claimant’s symptoms became acute and he left the hearing and
In any event, however, appellants do not contend that the 1 ‘ undue anxiety, strain and mental stress” and the “events and pressure to which claimant was subjected at the union hearing ”, found by the board to be causative of myocardial infarction, were legally or factually insufficient to give rise to a compensable accident or to support the board finding; nor did they particularize such a ground in their application for board review (of. Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 23; Matter of Hedlund v. United Exposition Decorating Co., 15 A D 2d 973, 975, mot. for lv. to app. den. 11 N Y 2d 646); but they assert, rather, that the record “contains no substantial evidence to sustain and support the Board finding of accidental injury in the nature of myocardial infarction ” (emphasis supplied) and that, assuming stress, without conceding it, “ the real question” is whether it caused an injury, and, if it did, ‘ ‘ what is the nature of such ‘ injury ’ ’ ’. Appellants proceed thence to argue that had there been indications, following the August 11, 1960 hearing, of a myocardial infarction, rather than the pulmonary condition first suspected, they would have been “picked up” by one of the physicians some days prior to the first diagnosis, made August 23, 1960, of cardiac damage and, since they were not, that no infarction occurred. There was, however, ample medical proof of the infarction and the board was, of course, entitled to accept it.
Appellants’ main contention seems to be that the board erred, as a matter of law, in finding that the accident arose out of and in the course of the employment. In their brief are cited cases in which compensation was denied claimants injured while per
The decision should be affirmed, with costs to the Workmen’s Compensation Board.
Herlihy, Reynolds, Aulisi and Hamm, JJ., concur.
Decision affirmed, with costs to the Workmen’s Compensation Board.