Opinion
August 8, 1952. Rehearing Denied October 21, 1952.
Appeal from the Circuit Court, Polk County, D.O. Rogers, J.
Oxford Oxford, Lakeland, for appellant.
Shackleford, Farrior, Shannon Stallings, Tampa, and Wendell C. Heaton, Tallahassee, for appellees.
In November, 1947, while working for Pasco Packing Company, Grant Mobley, the appellant, suffered a severe charge of electrical current caused by an aluminum ladder which he was carrying, coming in contact with a high voltage wire. He was unconscious for several hours, his body swelled, his eyes bulged and were bloody for several weeks, he was hospitalized and treated for nine days at Lakeland. He was later treated at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Lake City and in Buffalo, New York.
Eighteen months after his injury he filed claim for Workmen's Compensation, which was denied by the Deputy Commissioner. The full Commission affirmed the judgment of the Deputy Commissioner and the latter judgment was, on appeal, affirmed by the Circuit Court. The basis for all such denials was that claimant's blindness was caused from syphilis and not from the electric shock. We are confronted with an appeal from this finding.
The claimant testified that before the accident he could see to read and write, that he could drive a car or truck, that he had a license for that purpose, and could do anything else he was called on to do in the manual labor line, but that he had not been able to see since the accident.
The charge that syphilis caused the loss of his eyesight turns on the testimony of Dr. Anthony P. Perzia of Tampa and Dr. Marion W. Hester and Dr. Grover C. Freeman of Lakeland. Dr. Perzia testified positively that in his judgment syphilis caused the loss of claimant's eyesight and that the shock had nothing to do with it. Dr. Hester testified that the claimant was industrially blind, that syphilis was the primary cause but that the immediate cause might have been trauma. He further testified that it was conceivable that the blindness could have been due to electric shock but he had never seen it. He also testified that if blindness was caused by the shock it would perhaps be perceptible immediately or within three or four weeks. Dr. Freeman testified that the optic nerve could be destroyed by injury without syphilis. He further thought that even though syphilis might have been the primary factor the immediate cause of blindness was the trauma.
The foregoing is the pith of the evidence on the crucial point in the case. There is evidence that the claimant had syphilis at some time. Some of the tests made for syphilis were negative, but others were positive. Dr. Freeman was a general practitioner while Dr. Hester and Dr. Perzia were Specialists. Dr. Perzia was confident that syphilis was the sole cause of the blindness, while Dr. Hester and Dr. Freeman were not so certain. Experience teaches that even the best qualified doctors, like the rest of us, are not infallible. The best of us make mistakes in judgment. It may well be that claimant had syphilis in his blood but there is no showing that his eyesight was materially affected before the shock. If the shock aggravated or accelerated the progress of syphilis, he is entitled to compensation.
This brings us to the real point in the case. This Court is committed to the doctrine that an "employer accepts employee in such physical condition as he finds him and assumes the risk of a diseased condition aggravated by injury, compensation not being made to depend upon the condition of health of the employee, but for an injury which is a hazard of employment." Also that where the injury "aggravates or accelerates the progress of the disease, materially, contributing to hasten its culmination in disability or death, there may be a compensation award." Borden's Dairy v. Zanders, Fla., 42 So.2d 539; Davis v. Artley Construction Co., 154 Fla. 481, 18 So.2d 255; Star Fruit Co. v. Canady, 159 Fla. 488, 32 So.2d 2; Florence Citrus Growers Ass'n v. Parrish, 160 Fla. 685, 36 So.2d 369; Allen v. The Maxwell Company, Inc., 152 Fla. 340, 11 So.2d 572. Two of these are syphilis cases and in all of them this court allowed compensation.
In S.H. Kress Co. v. Burkes, 153 Fla. 868, 16 So.2d 106, pursuant to Section 440.26, F.S.A., we held that the presumption of law favors the claimant in proceedings before the Industrial Commission. The Deputy Commission, the full Commission and the Circuit Court based their finding on conflicting evidence showing that the claimant had syphilis and that it caused his blindness. Mr. Chief Justice SEBRING, Mr. Justice THOMAS, Mr. Justice HOBSON, Mr. Justice ROBERTS and Mr. Justice MATHEWS are of the view that the judgment appealed from should be affirmed.
The writer of this opinion is of the view that even though there is evidence which shows that the claimant had syphilis at some time, the evidence as a whole is more consistent with the theory that syphilis, if he had it at the time, was the indirect cause of the blindness which was accelerated or activated by the shock. The evidence of two doctors supports this theory. Other evidence leads to this conclusion and the reasonable deductions from the evidence support it. In this state of the evidence I think the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act and the decisions cited in the preceding paragraph require that compensation be allowed the claimant.
Despite my view, it results that the judgment appealed from must be and is hereby affirmed.
Affirmed.
SEBRING, C.J., and THOMAS, HOBSON, ROBERTS and MATHEWS, JJ., concur.