Opinion
33951.
DECIDED MARCH 8, 1952.
Appeal; from Gilmer Superior Court — Judge Brooke. November 29, 1951.
Harry E. Monroe, T. Elton Drake, John M. Williams, for plaintiffs in error.
Dobbs McCutchen, W. Neal Baird, Neely, Marshall Greene, contra.
Where the evidence as to the cause of the disability is in conflict, but there is some evidence to support an award of the Board of Workmen's Compensation, such award will not be reversed on the ground that the evidence demanded a finding in favor of the opposite party.
DECIDED MARCH 8, 1952.
In this workman's compensation case, Floyd Hall, the claimant, filed a claim against his employer, Ellijay Lumber Company, and its insures, Pacific Employers Insurance Company (which covered the employer from June 1, 1949, through June 1, 1950) and Lumbermens Mutual Insurance Company (which covered the employer at all times subsequent to June 1, 1950). The claimant testified that he received an injury about April 1, 1950, while driving a tractor for his employer, when a rock hit the tractor wheel and he was thrown down in the seat, suffering a back injury. This was not reported, but he did tell a fellow employee about it. He first saw a doctor on June 22, 1950, and at the time missed six days from work. He ceased working in January, 1951. The witness testified that his back had hurt at the time of the injury and continued to grow worse until he quit work. The evidence showed that, subsequently to April, 1950, he had engaged in continued heavy labor, moving large beams and sacks of cement, and had also dug and completed a 50-foot well by himself, moving all the dirt, this work not being connected with his employment. The medical witness testified that, at the time of the examination in June, the claimant had a record of back sprain extending into the left thigh; that lifting heavy timber would aggravate his condition; and that he could not explain the claimant's being able to do heavy labor for several months with the back injury he now has. A second medical witness, who first examined the claimant in January, 1951, testified that the claimant gave him a history of two injuries. The physician diagnosed a probable ruptured vertebral disc, and prescribed rest; he did not think this condition existed prior to January, and that heavy lifting brought on the disability; he testified that fifty percent of ruptured discs come about without any injury whatever. The third witness, on the basis of hypothetical questions, gave it as his opinion that the claimant had no injury more severe than a simple back sprain from the injury of April, 1950, which was very trivial; and that something happened in January, 1951, which caused him to have a herniation of a spinal disc; that two things must have happened to him, one resulting in simple sprain, and the other in severe injury; that he does not believe the herniated disc was suffered in April, and that in his opinion there was no connection between the April injury and the disability of the claimant.
The single director hearing the case found against the claimant. This judgment was affirmed by the full board. The case was then appealed to the Judge of the Superior Court of Gilmer County, who reversed the award and entered judgment against the plaintiffs in error here, on the ground that the evidence demanded a finding in favor of the claimant as against them. The exception is to this judgment.
The decisions of this State are uniform that, where an appeal is based on the ground that there is not sufficient competent evidence in the record to warrant the directors in making the award complained of, this court will look to the record to see whether the award is supported by any competent evidence, and, when so supported, the order must be affirmed. Code, § 114-710; Sears, Roebuck Co. v. Griggs, 48 Ga. App. 585 (5) ( 173 S.E. 194); Maryland Casualty Co. v. Brown, 48 Ga. App. 822 (1) ( 173 S.E. 925); Johnson v. American Mutual Liability Insurance Co., 50 Ga. App. 54 ( 176 S.E. 907). There is in this record competent opinion evidence which, if believed by the board, would authorize a finding that the injury complained of did not grow out of an accident of April, 1950, as contended by the claimant, and there is no evidence as to any other accident which acted as a precipitating cause of the disability. Consequently, the award denying compensation was based on some competent evidence. This being so, the order of the full board, affirming the award of the single director, was authorized, and it was error to reverse such award on the ground that a finding in favor of the claimant was demanded.
Judgment reversed. Gardner, P. J., and Carlisle, J., concur.