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Showing contexts for: heart attack in Bai Shakri W/O Naraindas Maganlal vs New Manekchowk Mills Co. Ltd. on 27 September, 1960Matching Fragments
3. The case of the appellant was that her husband died as a result of an injury caused to his heart by the accident which arose out of and in the course of his employment. The respondent's case was that the deceased got an attack at 3-20 P.M. on the 14th of August 1955 before the second shift commenced and while he was sitting in the Grey folding department where he had gone not for the Mills' work bat for his personal work. It was also the case of the respondent that the appellant's husband died due to a subsequent heart attack while he was not in the Mills' employment and, therefore, he cannot be said to have died of an injury which occurred as a result of and in the course of his employment.
6. Dr. Desai of the Civil Hospital stated in his evidence that on the 14th of August, 1955, the appellant's husband had a heart attack. It was a case of myocardial infraction. He also deposed that the deceased had a previous heart attack and had a bad heart. Dr. Desai has, however, stated that he was a patient who could have continued with a bad heart all his life. He has also stated that on the 29th of September 1955 when the appellant's husband left the hospital, "he had survived the attack", meaning thereby that he had survived the heart attack which the appellant's husband had on the 14th of August 1955. Dr. Desai was of the opinion that a subsequent heart attack is not caused by a previous heart attack and that the appellant's husband must have died on the 16th of March 1959 because he must have had a further attack after he left the hospital.
8. The question is whether on these facts it can be said that the deceased had suffered personal injury by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment with the respondent Mills even though he died on the March 16, 1956 long after his employment with the respondent's Mill had ceased.
9. Though the word 'accident' occurring in Section 3 of the Workmen's Compensation Act is not defined in the Act, the word has been a subject matter of a number of decisions as a result of which it has come to acquire a settled meaning. The word 'accident' generally means some unexpected event happening without design even though there may be negligence on the part of the workman. It is used in the popular and ordinary sense and means a mishap or an untoward event not expected or designed. What the Act really intends to convey is what might be expressed as an accidental injury. It includes not only such occurrences such as collisions, tripping over floor obstacles, falls of roof, but also less obvious ones causing injury, e.g. strain which causes rupture, exposure to a draught causing chill, exertion in a stokehold causing apoplexy and shock causing neurasthenia. But the common factor in all these cases is some concrete happening at a definite point of time and incapacity resulting from the happening. Since Section 3 provides that the accident must arise out of and in the course of the workman's employment, the accident in order to give rise to a claim for compensation must have some causal relation to the workman's employment and must be clue to a risk incidental to that employment. But, although an accident must be a particular occurrence which happens at a particular time, in order that it may constitute an accident within the meaning of Section 3, it is not necessary that the workman should be able to locate it in order to succeed In his claim. There would be cases where a series of tiny accidents, each producing some unidentifiable result and operating cumulatively to produce the final condition of injury, would constitute together an accident within, the meaning of this section. Thus, where the duties of a workman's employment were such that his eyes were exposed to the glare of a furnace and the successive assaults on his eyes by the high light of the furnace and the absorption on each occasion of ultra-violet rays slowly impaired his eye-sight till a crisis came with the effect of completely blinding him. The workman was held to have suffered personal injury, namely, the affliction of his eyes caused to him by an accident. Thus, the case of a man, who with a history of previous heart attack, knowing that he has a bad heart, continues to work in an employment, which by the very nature of work he has to perform might cause further strain on his heart and might thereby suffer a further heart attack, would be included within the ambit of Section 3. The fact that the workman continued in his employment knowing that he had a bad heart, against even the advice of his Doctor and also knowing that his work would cause strain on his heart and precipitate another attack is irrelevant. Once it is found that the work which he has been doing is within his employment, the question of negligence, great or small, on his part is irrelevant. Once it is established that a workman is doing an act which is within the scope of his employment though in a way which is negligent in any degree and is injured by risk incurred only by that way of doing it he is entitled to compensation : Per Lord Atkin in Harris v. Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers, Ltd., 1939 AC 71. The determinant factor is whether the personal injury suffered by the workman arose out of and in the course of his employment.
11. The question whether the work of a workman contributed to the personal injury or not becomes difficult of determination where it is a case of a heart attack. In such it case there am always two possibilities. A man with a bad heart might die in sleep or while he is actually resting. He may also die with the slightest strain arising out of even ordinary work, not involving any out of the ordinary physical strain. Such a case arose in Whittle v. Ebbw, Vate Steel, Iron and Coal Co. Ltd., (1936) 2 All ER 1221. The deceased in that case was a grease boiler aged 61, and was at the time of the accident suffering from heart disease. Notwithstanding his doctor's advice, he insisted upon going to work. The evidence of the doctor was that he might have died at any moment and any strain, even stooping, was prejudicial to him. He was seem about his work at 5-20 A. M. and found dead at 5-40 A. M. lying over a water tank, his face being covered with water. The post mortem examination showed that he died of heart-disease. Upon these facts, the County Court Judge held that the work upon which the deceased was engaged contributed to and accelerated his death and made an award in favour of his dependants. The Appeal Court also held that the employment contribute to the death of the deceased. It will be seen that in this case the cause of death was not known with certainty since there was no evidence as to how the deceased met his death. The question therefore that arises in such a case is whether upon the known facts there is an equal degree of probability that death was due to the employment or whether that was a more probable conclusion in the view of a reasonable man. In an earlier case in Lancaster v. Blackwell Colliery Co. Ltd., (1919) 12 BW CC 400 quoted by Slasser LJ in this decision, Lord Birkenhead L. C. had observed that if the facts which are proved give rise to conflicting inferences of equal degrees of probability so that the choice between them is a mere matter of conjecture, then, of-course, the applicant fails to prove his case, because it is plain that the onus in these matters is upon the applicant. But where the known facts are not equally consistent, where there is ground for comparing and balancing probabilities as to their respective value and where a reasonable man might hold that the more probable conclusion is that, for which, the applicant contends, then the arbitrator is justified in drawing an inference in his favour. In the case of (1936) 2 All ER 1221, there was clear medical evidence that the workman was not fit for a job involving continuous bard work; that he was a weak man by reason of his cardiac condition; that a man with a heart like that might break down under any physical strain and that the work described would have a deleterious effect upon him. What impressed the Appeal Court in that case was the fact that the workman was found dead within 20 minutes of the time when he would cease work and at the place where he would normally end the last of the four times he had to go to the tank. The tank where he was found dead was the very place where be would complete his work; the last process he had to do was to carry the grease to the tank to cool, and that was the place where he was found. In other words, the fact that the man died within 20 minutes from the time that he would cease his work that day and the fact that he was found dead at the place where he would go last before he ceased working that day were not only consistent with the conclusion that showed a greater probability that he died as a result of strain from his work, than his having died purely by the effect of the disease he was suffering from. Goddard, J. (as he then was) stressed this principle at page 1235 of the report where he observed: