ALMA VON S. TITMAN, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT,
v.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE TEACHERS' PENSION AND ANNUITY FUND, DEFENDANT-RESPONDENT.
Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division.
*245 Before Judges CONFORD, COLLESTER and KOLOVSKY.
Mr. Edward C. Stokes argued the cause for plaintiff (Messrs. Stokes & Throckmorton, attorneys).
Miss Rachel Leff, Deputy Attorney General, argued the cause for defendant (Mr. Arthur J. Sills, Attorney General, attorney; Mr. Stephen Skillman, Deputy Attorney General, of Counsel; Mr. Franklin D. Renkoff, Deputy Attorney General, on the brief).
PER CURIAM.
Subsequent to oral argument we requested the parties to brief the question, raised for thе first time at the argument by the Attorney General, whether, assuming the 1960 "jumping rope" incident qualifiеs as a "traumatic event" within N.J.S.A. 18A:66-39, subd. c, plaintiff's permanent and total disability after the 1966 "staircase" incident constitutes a "direct result" of the 1960 incident within the language and intent of the statute and under the proofs adduced before the agency.
*246 It is clear from the fourth paragraph of subsection (c) of the cited statutory section that allоwance of a pension for employment-connected disability depends uрon a showing that the applicant "is physically * * * incapacitated for the performance of duty * * *" and is "permanently and totally disabled as a direct result of a traumatic event occurring during and as a result of the performance of his regulаr and assigned duties * * *."
Plaintiff sustained a disability to her left leg in 1960 while jumping rope during a physical education class which she was teaching. We are inclined to the view, and assume fоr present purposes, that this constituted a "traumatic event." However, the proofs are persuasive that the disability resulted from the combined effect of a рrogressive condition of degenerative arthritis and either a ligament strain or a fracture of the bone structure of the left knee probably the product of the 1960 inсident. Plaintiff had minor trouble with her left leg and favored it after the 1960 incident. However, plаintiff was not totally disabled, continuing as a teacher until September 23, 1966, when her right leg collapsed or "snapped," as she put it, while descending a flight of steps at schoоl.
The medical proofs indicated that the "process" that had caused the degeneration of the left knee also eventually affected the right knee. The school-board physician thought that plaintiff's favoring the left leg prior to the 1966 incident сontributed to the collapse of the right leg.
Preliminarily, we have concluded that thе Board was right in deciding that the 1966 incident was not a "traumatic event" independently effеctive to sustain a claim for disability pension consequent thereon. The term "traumаtic event," as employed in the 1966 revision of the act (chapter 66) is a significant dеparture from the term "accident" previously found in the act. Without here assaying thе full scope of the substituted term, we are satisfied that the proofs concerning the 1966 episode do not bring it within the meaning of the term. We conclude that a previously developing *247 degenerative process simply reached the point of cоllapse of the right leg and knee at the fortuitous moment petitioner was descеnding a staircase, and that this does not constitute such a traumatic event as the stаtute contemplates.
We further conclude that petitioner's ultimate total disаbility was not a "direct" result of the 1960 incident, as the act requires it to be. The word "direct" сonnotes relative freedom from remoteness, whether in terms of time, intervention оf other contributive causes or the like, or a combination of such factors. Thе criterion cannot be reduced to a formula which will solve all cases. The mаtter is one essentially of degree. Here, the disability of the left leg produced no disability to work at plaintiff's assigned duties. It was only the intervention of a similar condition in the right leg, over six years later, not itself the result of a traumatic event, which produced plaintiff's disability to perform her duties. The Board here found, on adequate proofs, thаt plaintiff's disability resulted primarily from a progressive disease, and there is no medical proof that the 1960 injury caused that disease. The express statutory exclusion of disability resulting from a "muscular-skeletal condition" not the direct result of a traumatic evеnt, etc., reflects the legislative view that such conditions are particularly to bе scrutinized for directness of connection between the specified traumatiс event and the claimant's total disability.
The state of the record here, in the light of suсh pertinent findings of fact as were made by the Board, convinces us that plaintiff's permanent and total disability was not a direct result of the 1960 incident. She is therefore not entitled to a service-connected disability pension.
Affirmed.