Opinion
Franklin C. Douglas, John A. Kintzele, Denver, for defendant-appellee James R. Vaughn.
Alious Rockett, Feay Burton Smith, Jr., Francis L. Bury, William J. Baum, Denver, for plaintiffs-appellants.
Duke W. Dunbar, Atty. Gen., John P. Moore, Deputy Atty. Gen., Peter L. Dye, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for defendants-appellees Industrial Commission of Colorado and Director, Dept. of Labor and Employment.
DUFFORD, Judge.
This case concerns a workmen's compensation award made to James R. Vaughn, one of the appellees. The decision of the Industrial Commission confirming the award was upheld by the district court, and Vaughn's employer, Temperature Systems Corporation, and also the State Compensation Insurance Fund have brought this appeal.
The question here is whether there is any evidence to sustain a finding that Vaughn's injury, consisting of a cerebral hematoma which was diagnosed and removed on November 2, 1966, was proximately caused by a blow to his head inflicted during his employment on December 18, 1965. It is undisputed that Vaughn did receive an accidental blow to the right side of his head on December 18, 1965, while performing work for his employer. That injury was not disabling, and Vaughn returned to work immediately after treatment of the visible surface wound. Nor is there controversy about the facts that approximately ten months after the injury, Vaughn was seriously stricken with a convulsion; that his condition was subsequently diagnosed as intracerebral hematoma; and that a large hematoma was then removed from the deep interior of the right brain lobe. It is also without dispute that the hematoma which was removed was comparatively fresh and could not have been more than two weeks old. The divisive issue here is whether there is any evidence that the injury Vaughn suffered in 1965 caused the hematoma which was removed in 1966.
The record reveals that the expert medical testimony which bears upon this question is at variance. Viewed in its entirety, however, we cannot agree with the appellants' contention that all of such testimony establishes only the 'possibility' of a causal connection between the head injury and the later disabling brain hematoma. One expert testified, based upon supportive facts observed in the pathologist's slides, that the hematoma was a delayed result of the head injury. The operating surgeon ultimately expressed a concurrence with such opinion, openly acknowledging that he was modifying his earlier opinion that the hematoma came from an unknown cause.
This then is not a situation such as that dealt with in Rumsey v. State Compensation Insurance Fund, 162 Colo. 545, 427 P.2d 694, which appellants contend controls this case. In Rumsey the medical testimony was to the effect that the brain hemorrhage could have occurred Only if specific conditions had been in existence, and it was never proven that such conditions did exist. If anything, there was a strong showing that the required conditions Did not exist. In the instant case, the medical opinions which the Referee obviously relied upon in granting the award were not conditional in their nature. They established a reasonable probability that the injury caused the hematoma, and this is all our law requires. Industrial Commission v. Riley, 165 Colo. 586, 441 P.2d 3.
Judgment affirmed.
SILVERSTEIN, C.J., and PIERCE, J., concur.