JOHN CRICHTON, Employee/Appellant,
v.
BUD MEYER TRUCK LINES, INC., SELF-INSURED/ADMIN. CLAIM SERVS., Employer,
and
BLUE CROSS & BLUE SHIELD OF MINN., BLUE CROSS & BLUE SHIELD OF TENN., BLUE CROSS & BLUE SHIELD OF WIS., and JACKSON-MADISON COUNTY GEN'L HOSP., Intervenors, and SPECIAL COMPENSATION FUND.
Minnesota Workers Compensation
Workers' Compensation Court of Appeals
March 11, 1999
HEADNOTES
CAUSATION
- HEART CONDITION. Substantial evidence supported the
compensation judge's determination that the employee
failed to show that he had experienced unusual emotional
stress at work prior to his myocardial infarction, or that
either work-related emotional or physical stress was a
substantial contributing causes of the onset of his
myocardial infarction.
EVIDENCE
- ADMISSION. Minn. Stat. § 602.01 is clearly a
"statutory rule of evidence" as contemplated by the
clear language of Minn. Stat. § 176.411, subd.
1. Accordingly, we conclude that the compensation judge
was not required to follow or to consider the provisions of
that statute in determining whether to admit into evidence
the recording and transcription of the employee's July
18, 1995 statement.
Affirmed.
Determined by Wheeler, C.J., Johnson, J., and Hefte, J.
Compensation Judge: Rolf G. Hagen
OPINION
STEVEN
D. WHEELER, Judge
The
employee appeals from the admission into evidence of the
employee's statement, taken July 18, 1995, and from the
compensation judge's determination that the employee
failed to prove either that the stress to which he was
exposed in his job for the employer as an over-the-road truck
driver was beyond the ordinary day-to-day stress to which all
employees are exposed, or that the employee's job stress
was a substantial contributing factor in the onset of the
employee's heart attack on June 26, 1995. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
The
employee, John Crichton, worked for the employer, Bud Meyer
Truck Lines, as an over-the-road truck driver. On June
26, 1995, the employee suffered from preexisting coronary
artery disease and obstructive pulmonary disease, was 48
years of age, was 5§ 7" tall and weighed 240 pounds, and
had a 20-year history of smoking at least one and one-half
packs of unfiltered cigarettes per day. On that date,
the employee sustained a myocardial infarction resulting from
total occlusion of the left anterior ascending artery of the
heart while on the premises of Fleming Foods in Lubbock,
Texas, in the course of his employment with Bud Meyer Truck
Lines. He has not worked since that date. The
employee filed a claim petition seeking workers'
compensation benefits on February 28, 1997. He alleges
that physical and emotional stress associated with his work
duties for the employer were a substantial contributing cause
of the onset of his heart attack. The employer and
insurer denied primary liability, asserting that the cause of
the heart attack was not work-related. (Judgment
Roll; Findings, 4 - 7 [unappealed].)
The
case came on for the first of three days of hearing before a
compensation judge of the Office of Administrative Hearings
on January 7, 1998. That day was consumed in preliminary
motions, stipulations, and the marking and admission of
evidence. Among the motions was a motion by the employee
to exclude the transcript and tape of a recorded statement
taken from the employee on July 18, 1995 by the insurer's
claims representative, Byron Penton. (Exhs. 13 &
14.) Ruling on the motion was deferred until the end of
the hearing. Live testimony, as well as various
additional evidence, was received on March 24 and 25,
1998. At the close of the hearing, the compensation
judge ruled on the motion to exclude the employee's July
18, 1995 statement and admitted both Exhibits 13 and 14.
The
employee was born on October 4, 1946. He worked for a
number of years in the field of automobile and truck repair
until 1985 when began working as an over-the-road truck
driver. He thereafter drove for various employers, and
became a full-time truck driver working for the employer, Bud
Meyer Truck Lines, on or about December 7, 1994. (T. 96;
Finding 2 [unappealed].)
On
about June 12, 1995, the employee left his home at Alamo,
Tennessee, to begin a trip for the employer to deliver loads
to various destinations with his last stop scheduled for
Fleming Foods in Lubbock, Texas. A friend, Ricky Sollis,
went along on the trip to keep him company. After making
a stop in California, the employee headed towards his stop in
Texas. The employee testified that he purchased fuel in
Eloy, Arizona, sometime on June 24, 1995 and slept for about
five hours at Lordsburg, New Mexico. At about 10:30 a.m.
on Sunday, June 25, 1995, the employee purchased fuel in El
Paso, Texas. Later that day, sometime between 3:30 and
5:00 p.m., a little bit south of Pecos, Texas, the alternator
in the employee's truck failed, rendering the truck
inoperable. The employee testified that he was "a
little upset" both because he was not sure he could make
his delivery deadline at Fleming Foods due to the breakdown,
and because the weather was hot and felt like it was over 100
degrees. The employee had recalled the temperature as
113 degrees. He called the employer to arrange for
repairs. He testified that until the truck had been
repaired, he waited in a rundown restaurant which had a fan
but no air conditioning. He could not sleep in the truck
as its air conditioning did not work while the truck's
electrical system was inoperative, and he was unable to get a
motel room. (T. 108-133, 229, 242-243.)
The
truck was repaired by about 7:30 p.m., and the employee
resumed the drive to Lubbock, which was about 240 miles
away. His schedule provided about 10 and one-half hours
before he was due to arrive there, as he was not due to
arrive in Lubbock until 6:00 a.m. the following
morning. A fuel receipt in evidence confirms that he
purchased fuel at about 11:20 p.m. at Big Spring, Texas,
about 130 miles from Lubbock, having taken a longer route to
Lubbock in order to stop at Big Spring, where there was an
employer-authorized fuel facility. Under the
employee's schedule, he still had about six and one-half
hours before he was due to arrive in Lubbock. While he
was at Big Spring, the employee contacted his dispatcher to
inform him that the truck had been repaired, and to request
that his load be rescheduled to permit him to get some
sleep. He testified that he could not reach the
dispatcher immediately, and had tried for "a couple of
hours" by telephone before he was able to reach
him. No rescheduling was authorized, and the employee
testified that he...
