Opinion
December 7, 1961
Present — Coon, J.P., Gibson, Herlihy, Reynolds and Taylor, JJ.
Appeal by employer and carrier from an award of death benefits. Decedent was the building superintendent of a six-story 110-family apartment house owned by his employer. His duties required him to remove snow from the adjacent public sidewalks and its three recessed entrances. The sidewalks were approximately five feet in width and extended for a total distance of about 360 feet along the front and side of the corner building. For an hour in the late evening of February 15, 1958 decedent, then 50 years of age, began to remove falling snow from the main entrance to the premises and for several hours on each of the ensuing three days was engaged in shoveling snow from the sidewalks and entrances. At approximately 5 o'clock in the afternoon of February 18 the clearing of about 10 inches of snow which had fallen in the interval was finished. The work was performed in winds of high velocities and in temperatures of freezing degrees. To an extent which the record does not clearly indicate decedent was assisted by a porter employed about the apartment house. The board found that decedent's snow-shoveling work during the successive four-day period in the prevailing weather conditions required strenuous and unusual physical effort which precipitated a coronary thrombosis with death as its unavoidable result. Appellants' sole contention on this appeal is that there was no substantial evidence to sustain the board's finding of a causally related accidental injury. There was testimony by the widow that after the completion of the snow removal on February 18 decedent complained of excessive tiredness and took "a good hot bath" to relieve it. She observed that he was not "his usual self" and was "very pale". In the evening of the same day decedent left his apartment to spend several hours with a nearby fellow superintendent returning to his home at about 10:30 P.M. and retiring shortly thereafter. The widow further testified that when she awakened decedent at about 7:30 o'clock on the morning of February 19, he again complained of tiredness and that he "didn't feel good". Later in the morning he perspired for a short time and developed a pain in his shoulder. His wife observed his "spasmodic breathing" and that his ear lobes were turning blue. Unable to rouse him she summoned the police and an ambulance. Decedent was dead on their arrival. An Assistant Medical Examiner for the City of New York established the time of death at 10:10 A.M. and certified its cause as "coronary thrombosis — coronary sclerosis". Although no autopsy was performed, the medical experts assumed that decedent was suffering from pre-existing arteriosclerosis and that the immediate cause of his death was coronary thrombosis with myocardial infarction. The conflict in the medical opinion evidence of four qualified experts in the field of cardiology raised a question of fact concerning the issue of causal relationship which the board resolved in favor of claimant. ( Matter of Fisher v. Buffalo Elec. Co., 2 A.D.2d 612.) There is substantial evidence to sustain a finding of industrial accident. ( Matter of Kneen v. Vestal Methodist Church, 2 A.D.2d 614; Matter of Shefick v. Lefrak, 11 A.D.2d 828.) The time sequence between the occurrence of the strain and the onset of thrombotic symptomatology is not in itself determinative of the question of accidental injury. ( Matter of Masse v. Robinson Co., 301 N.Y. 34; Matter of Snyder v. New York State Veterans Emergency Housing Project, 1 A.D.2d 712; Matter of Martinelli v. Metropolis Trucking Co., 8 A.D.2d 551; Matter of Webb v. Twelve Pine St., 12 A.D.2d 555.) Decision and award unanimously affirmed, with costs to the Workmen's Compensation Board.