California Notion & Toy Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission

LANGDON, P. J.

This matter comes to us upon a writ of review. It is contended by petitioner that an award of the Industrial Accident Commission, allowing compensation to E'dward G. Fennig for a period from September 24, 1921, to February 28, 1922, the date of the award, is unwarranted and should be annulled. The commission found that since the injury the applicant has been suffering from a diseased condition of the blood vessels and any disability existing after the date of the award is due to said diseased condition and not to said injury.

Edward G. Fennig, at the time of the accident involved here, was a man of the age of about sixty-three years. He had been employed for twenty-five years as a salesman and stock clerk by the California Notion and Toy Company. He had worked continually and steadily in his employment and had not had occasion to require the' services of a physician except occasionally for a cold. On September 16, 1921, he was attempting to take down some stock from the shelves. He had a short movable ladder which he had carried to the shelves. He stated at the hearing that his recollection of the matters immediately preceding the accident and of the accident itself was not clear, and that he thought he went up the ladder about four or five steps, but that he really did not remember whether he had mounted the ladder or not. He had no recollection of having fallen, and, indeed, recalled nothing from the time he started to mount the ladder until he was

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being taken downstairs by a fellow-employee, who had found him lying on the floor with the ladder on top of him.

The symptoms of which Fennig complained were nervousness and an inability to talk coherently and think correctly. The only physical injuries which were apparent after his fall were a bruise and small cut on his head and some bruises on his legs. He stated that he was unable to return to his work because of his inability to speak intelligibly and his tendency to become fatigued very easily.

At the request of petitioners an order was made by the Industrial Accident Commission for an examination of the applicant by a medical examiner to be appointed by the commission. The record contains several medical reports, which is all the evidence in the record to explain the cause of the accident. One of these concludes with the statement: “In arriving at a decision as to whether his cerebral lesion is intra or extra cerebral, and whether he may have had his cerebral accident and then fallen, or fallen and then had the development of cerebral picture, it will be necessary to have fundus findings, X-rays of head, urine examination et al. The patient should be in a hospital. In any event, his arterial condition, and there has long been present arterial disease, is the fundamental basis of his picture.”