27 A.2d 272 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1942
Argued April 20, 1942. The referee, the Workmen's Compensation Board, and the court below refused to allow claimant additional compensation. On behalf of claimant, who has appealed, the question involved is stated thus: Where, as the result of the loss of his foot, claimant is required to use crutches, and, within the period during which he is receiving compensation, his crutch slips, causing *475 him to fall and injure himself seriously about the hip and pelvic region, is the claimant entitled to compensation in addition to that for the loss of the foot?
Claimant, while employed by defendant, was accidentally injured on August 18, 1936. Amputation was necessary midway between the ankle and the knee of the left leg. An agreement was entered into between the parties which provided for the payment of compensation for the loss of a foot, at the rate of $15 per week, beginning on August 26, 1936, and to continue for 150 weeks, as provided in section 306 (c) of the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1915, as amended, April 13, 1927, P.L. 186,
One evening in August, 1938, claimant went from the basement of his home into the back yard with the aid of his two crutches, and while walking one of the crutches slipped on the grass, and as a result he fell on his left side and injured his left femur and hip.
On July 7, 1939, claimant filed a petition for review of the existing compensation agreement. Defendant filed an answer, and hearings were held by the referee. On November 25, 1939, claimant amended the petition for review by averring that his disability had become total on and prior to July 6, 1939, as a result of the accident on August 18, 1936, and reference was made to the accident in August, 1938, and the resulting injuries.
The facts are not in dispute, and it is claimant's contention that defendant is liable for the further disability on the ground that it was the proximate result of the first accident. The compensation authorities found and concluded that there was no causal connection between the original accident on April 18, 1936, and claimant's further disability which followed his fall at home in August, 1938. We agree that claimant's subsequent injuries had no direct relation to the original *476
accident. It is true that the use of crutches was made necessary because of the loss of his foot, but the new injuries were rather the result of a cause independent of the accidental injury for which defendant was obliged to pay compensation. If, while walking with his crutches, claimant had fallen over some object, or had slipped on a defective sidewalk, certainly it could not be said that the resulting injuries and disability were the proximate, natural, and probable result of the original accident.Gallagher v. Hudson Coal Co.,
To accept claimant's theory would require us to recognize novel and extraordinary consequences where there was an entire absence of a natural and continuous sequence between the alleged cause and the alleged effect, or where there was no direct connection between them. The requisite connection in this type of case is illustrated in Hornetz v. Philadelphia Reading Coal Iron Co.,
Counsel for claimant believes that Marshall v. City ofPittsburgh,
Assignments of error are overruled.
Judgment of the court below is affirmed.