Summary
In Rondolone v. Dolente, 3 Pa. Commw. 450, 283 A.2d 511 (1971) the Board chose to not believe the testimony of the claimant's expert testimony and that decision was upheld on appeal by this Court.
Summary of this case from Billet v. Keystone Roofing Mfg. Co. et alOpinion
Argued October 8, 1971
November 11, 1971.
Workmen's Compensation — Scope of appellate review — Capricious disregard of competent evidence — Cause of death.
1. To reverse an order of the Workmen's Compensation Board on the ground that the Board capriciously disregarded competent evidence in making its findings, the reviewing court must determine that such action was so flagrant as to be repugnant to a man of reasonable intelligence. [452]
2. The rejection by the Workmen's Compensation Board of the assertion of a physician who had never taken nor seen an electrocardiogram of the patient nor performed an autopsy that an earlier heart attack was the probable cause of a fatal attack, was not a capricious disregard of competent evidence. [452-3]
Argued October 8, 1971, before Judges CRUMLISH, JR., KRAMER and ROGERS, sitting as a panel of three.
Appeal No. 149 C. D. 1971, from the Order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, No. 1085 October Term, 1968, in case of Sophie Rondolone, widow of Domenico Rondolone v. Louis Dolente Sons, Employer, and Insurance Company of North America, Insurance Carrier.
Workmen's compensation death claim petition filed. Workmen's Compensation Board, reversing referee, disallowed claim. Claimant appealed to the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County. Disallowance affirmed. HIRSH, J. Claimant appealed to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. Held: Affirmed.
Charles F. Quinn, with him Sheer, Mazzocone Quinn, for appellant.
Richard D. Harburg, with him Swartz, Campbell Detweiler, for appellees.
This appeal is from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County which, sustaining an order of the Workmen's Compensation Board, denied certain death benefits to the widow of Domenico Rondolone. Mr. Rondolone had been adjudicated a permanent total disability case because of a compensable heart attack in 1961. He expired of congestive heart failure in 1964. Upon petition by the widow, death benefits were awarded by a referee. This award was appealed to the Workmen's Compensation Board which reversed the referee's decision. Claimant urges this Court to agree that the Board capriciously disregarded competent evidence in denying the award of death benefits. This contention is without merit.
The basis of appellant's contention is that the testimony of Doctor Coletta, the attending physician, established a causal connection between the compensable injury in 1961 and death in 1964. The Board found that the doctor's conclusion that a causal connection existed between accident and death was conjecture and that although it was possible that there may have been causal connection between the prior accident and the death, there were other equally plausible causes of death. The Board concluded that without a factual basis for attributing death to one probable cause, no award of death benefits could be made.
Review of the findings of a Workmen's Compensation Board is limited to the determination of whether there has been a capricious disregard of competent evidence. Baur v. Mesta Machine Co., 405 Pa. 617, 176 A.2d 684 (1961); Scanella v. Salerno Importing Co., 2 Pa. Commw. 11, 17 (1971), 275 A.2d 907; Lorigan v. Gulbranson, 184 Pa. Super. 251, 132 A.2d 695 (1958). As stated in Urbach Unemployment Compensation Case, 169 Pa. Super. 569, 572 (1951), 83 A.2d 392: "To charge an administrative agency with capricious disbelief, it must be so flagrant as to be repugnant to a man of reasonable intelligence." We must determine whether the Board's reason for disregarding Doctor Coletta's testimony was unreasonable in this situation.
The Board in its conclusion relied heavily on the facts that the attending physician had only examined the decedent three times and that he had never taken an electrocardiogram of the patient, nor reviewed past electrocardiograms nor performed an autopsy. For these reasons the Board chose not to accept Doctor Coletta's assertion that the first attack was the probable cause of the fatal seizure. We hold that under these circumstances there was no capricious disregard of competent evidence by the Board. The testimony of the doctor has not established the causal relationship between the accident and death so clearly as to make it a capricious disregard of competent evidence for the Board to find otherwise. Its denial of death benefits is affirmed.