Opinion
40497.
DECIDED JANUARY 22, 1964.
Workmen's compensation. Fulton Superior Court. Before Judge Foster from Tallapoosa Circuit.
Carl Fredericks, William I. Aynes, for plaintiff in error.
Greene, Neely, Buckley DeRieux, Burt DeRieux, contra.
Where the evidence shows only that the employee, while eating a meal, the expense of which was reimbursed by the employer, sustained a rupture of the esophagus and that the disability alleged resulted from an operation necessary to repair the esophageal tract, but there was no evidence that the food was unusual in any way or that eating it contributed to the perforation of the tissue, compensation was properly denied.
DECIDED JANUARY 22, 1964.
The claimant, a traveling insurance adjuster provided with an expense account and working at such times and places as his services were required, experienced a severe pain in his throat during one of his trips while eating supper in a restaurant. Following this he fainted, was taken to a hospital and a medical diagnosis was returned after operation of a spontaneous rupture of the esophagus without evidence of trauma. The claimant had been in good health until this time. The perforation of the esophagus occurred as he was swallowing a piece of roast beef which he testified he had masticated and which did not appear to contain foreign matter and was in all respects wholesome and ordinary. The food was removed by a procedure involving major surgery, from the chest cavity where it had lodged and the claimant has since been disabled as a result of side effects of the operation. There is no testimony, medical or otherwise, connecting the food with the esophageal failure nor any other explanation of the sudden onset of the trouble. The deputy director hearing the case denied compensation on the ground the claimant had not sustained an accidental injury within the meaning of the Act, which award was adopted by the full board and affirmed on appeal by a judge of the Superior Court of Fulton County.
"The mere fact that one event chronologically follows another is alone insufficient to establish a causal relation between them. Post hoc non propter hoc. Evidence that a woman suffered a pain in her heart and other physical ailments after having swallowed a liquid . . . is, in the absence of evidence as to any facts tending to show a causal relation between the woman's physical condition and the swallowing of the liquid, insufficient to authorize an inference of fact that her condition was caused by the swallowing and the ill tasting effects of the liquid." Payne v. Chandler, 41 Ga. App. 385 (2) ( 153 S.E. 96). There is in this record nothing to show that the eating of the food caused the "spontaneous rupture" of the esophagus or in any way contributed to the disability which followed, except the mere fact that the two events are closely connected in time. We are cognizant of the reiterated statement that the distinction between proximate and remote causes is not to be too rigorously pressed in the application of the Workmen's Compensation Act, Thomas v. U.S. Cas. Co., 218 Ga. 493 (3) ( 128 S.E.2d 749), U.S. Cas. Co. v. Smith, 162 Ga. 130, 137 ( 133 S.E. 851), but, even in heart cases, this court has consistently held that where there is an attack there must be some evidence, either of exertion sufficient in itself to suggest a causal connection or opinion evidence to this effect, to obliterate the probability of mere coincidence. See Carpenter v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 93 Ga. App. 213 ( 91 S.E.2d 199).
Since the evidence certainly does not demand a finding that the food the claimant was eating in the course of his employment was a contributing proximate cause of his injury, the judge of the superior court did not err in affirming the award denying compensation.
Judgment affirmed. Nichols, P. J., and Hall, J., concur.