Opinion
Decided May 8, 1997
APPEAL, by permission of the Court of Appeals, from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the Second Judicial Department, entered August 5, 1996, which affirmed a judgment of the Supreme Court (Gerald S. Held, J.), entered in Kings County in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, granting a petition to annul a determination of the Board of Trustees of the New York City Fire Department, Article 1-B Pension Fund, which denied petitioner's application for an accident disability pension and retired him on ordinary disability.
Petitioner began employment as a firefighter in 1963. On July 12, 1986, he sustained severe physical injury while on active duty. On that date, petitioner was conducting a fire search on the first floor of a building when he fell approximately eight feet into an unguarded stairway and through a trap door, landing on a concrete floor in the cellar of the building. Petitioner injured his back, hip, thigh, groin and ankle. As a result of this accident, petitioner was placed on medical leave. Petitioner initially returned to full duty, but later moved to the more physically restrictive status, light duty. The Board of Trustees subsequently found petitioner disabled for firefighting duty and granted him ordinary disability retirement. Seeking accident disability retirement and contending that both permanent muscle damage and aggravation of his disc disease resulting from the July 12, 1986 line-of-duty accident were the proximate cause of his disability, petitioner commenced the present proceeding to annul the Board's determination.
The Appellate Division concluded that the proof incontrovertibly established a causal connection between the petitioner's line-of-duty injuries and his disability; that the record is bereft of any objective medical evidence indicating that the petitioner's disabling lower back condition was the result of anything other than his line-of-duty injuries, and that the only reasonable inference is that the petitioner's disability was the natural and proximate result of his service-related accidents.
In the Court of Appeals, appellants contended that the Appellate Division, in finding that the evidence before the Board of Trustees was uncontroverted, improperly ignored the findings of the 1-B Medical Board which were based on ample medical evidence.
Matter of Wahl v Board of Trustees, 230 A.D.2d 747, reversed.
Paul A. Crotty, Corporation Counsel of New York City (Fay Ng of counsel), for appellants.
Blau, Kramer, Wactlar Lieberman, P.C., Jericho (Edward S. Wactlar of counsel), for respondent.
MEMORANDUM.
The order of the Appellate Division should be reversed, with costs, and the petition dismissed.
There was credible evidence before the Board of Trustees of lack of a causal relationship between petitioner's service-related injury and his disabling degenerative lumbar spine condition, in the form of the Medical Board's record-based, rational medical explanation and the testimony of the Department's Chief Medical Officer based upon an interpretation of the medical reports and MRI film (see, Matter of Meyer v Board of Trustees, 90 N.Y.2d 139 [decided today]). The fact that the Medical Board did not ascertain the genesis of petitioner's long-standing and progressive disc disease does not invalidate its finding that this disabling condition was not causally connected to the service injury (see, Matter of Drayson v Board of Trustees, 37 A.D.2d 378, 381, affd 32 N.Y.2d 852).
Chief Judge KAYE and Judges TITONE, BELLACOSA, SMITH, LEVINE, CIPARICK and WESLEY concur in memorandum.
On review of submissions pursuant to section 500.4 of the Rules of the Court of Appeals (22 N.Y.CRR 500.4), order reversed, etc.