Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission

WOOD, J.

Petition for a writ of review whereby it is sought to annul an award of the Industrial Accident Commission.

The commission made findings that the applicant, Mr. Davidson, sustained injury arising out of and occurring in the course of his employment, consisting of “precipitation of coronary thrombosis”; that the injury caused temporary total disability “beginning February 11, 1948, to and including September 19, 1948,” entitling the applicant to $30 per week during that time; that the injury also caused temporary partial disability “beginning September 20,1948 to and including November 19, 1948 and thereafter,” during which time work of a type which the applicant could perform was not available to him, entitling him to $30 per week during continuance of such temporary partial disability or until further order of the commission; that applicant was entitled to be reimbursed for the reasonable value of medical care and treatment, and was entitled to further medical care and treatment at the expense of defendants. An award was made in accordance with the findings.

Petitioner contends that the “heart attack” suffered by applicant did not arise out of his employment.

The applicant, who was 51 years of age at the time of the injury, was employed by defendant in February, 1944, and worked for defendant steadily thereafter until February 10, 1948, the date of the injury. For a period of approximately four months prior to February 10, 1948, applicant had been working as an attendant in defendant’s “uncured” tire storage department. He performed his services in a long aisle which was about 8 feet wide, and in performing those

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services he went back and forth over a distance of approximately 70 feet. It was his duty, after tires came from the starching machine, to take them from the floor or a conveyor belt, and place them in metal racks, which racks were constructed one above the other along one side of the aisle—the highest racks being approximately 12 feet above the floor. In order to place tires on the higher racks it was necessary for him to lift the tires with a long pole. It was customary for* the operator of the starching machine, after putting starch on tires, to throw them on the floor. Sometimes the tires would accumulate on the floor of the aisle in such quantities that applicant could not use a hand truck in moving them, and then he would carry the tires. It was also applicant’s duty to select certain tires and throw them down chutes to operators of a bagging machine.