Halsey v Townsend Tree Service Co.
Release date: April 20, 2021 (Accident date July 2016)
Venue: 2021 Mo. App. Lexis 469 SD 36658
Summary: Court affirms finding that claimant passed out at work on a hot day in Poplar Bluff while collection "caution" signs. He died the following day from hypothermia.
The employer argued that claimant's death was compensable, and it was not precluded by claimant's idiopathic condition (obesity, 300 pounds). The surviving parents argued there was no remedy in comp and could proceed in a wrongful death claim.
The ALJ found the accident compensable and the idiopathic obesity defense did not apply. The Commission found that obesity may be a contributing factor, but there was no medical opinion that the injury was entirely idiopathic.
The court found there was expert opinion that exposure on one day was the prevailing factor, despite equivocal testimony that exposure on other days may also contributed to the heat stroke. The expert considered the appeal was "doomed" because it did not acknowledge favorable evidence from lay witnesses of the heat exposure on the last day.
The court noted the parents failed in their burden of production that obesity causes the injury, not that it was a factor or a contributing cause. An idiopathic cause cannot be a defense unless it can satisfy the "but for" causation test and would not have occurred but for the obesity. The court declines to address whether 287.020.3(3) requires any closer causal connection between an idiopathic condition and the alleged resulting injury.
A federal court dismissed a wrongful death suit and found whether a compensable accident occurred must be decided by the commission. It noted a compensable injury did not occur according to expert opinions and felt that obesity precluded compensability.
