Opinion
June 19, 1967
Appeal by claimant from a decision of the Workmen's Compensation Board which disallowed a claim for death benefits. Decedent slipped and fell on an icy sidewalk in December, 1955. He was subsequently disabled and received compensation. He died at home on August 4, 1959. The board found no causal relationship between the accident and the death. Appellant attacks this determination on the grounds that causal relation was established and that the testimony of the impartial neurologist to whom the board referred the case cannot be credited because the doctor was on the staff of a State hospital and the employer is a State training school. There is the usual conflict of medical opinion concerning the relation, if any, of the accident and the death nearly four years later. A review of the record reveals substantial evidence to sustain the board's determination of this factual question. In addition, there is nothing in the law or the record which requires us to discount the testimony of the impartial specialist designated by the board merely because he was a staff physician of a State hospital. Decision affirmed, without costs. Gibson, P.J., Herlihy, Aulisi, Staley, Jr., and Gabrielli, JJ., concur in memorandum by Aulisi, J.