Hetherington v Amalgamated Collieries of WA Limited [1939] HCA 36

Hetherington v Amalgamated Collieries of WA Limited [1939] HCA 36 - HCA 1939 case summary — Zoe

[20]

evidence was called on behalf of both parties. The notes of the medical evidence were substantially as follows :- - John McCall, medical practitioner (called by the applicant) : - "TI performed post-mortem on his body on 16th November 1937. . . . On post-mortem, I found coronary artery was obliterated, brain was congested and lungs also. Heart muscles showed small areas of degeneration. Other organs were normal. Cause of death was occlusion of coronary artery. That is blocking of the artery. He had been suffering from arterio-sclerosis prior to death. He should not have been doing work he was on at time of death. Work and walking and atmospheric conditions in my opinion hastened death. I don't think Hetherington would have died had it not been for work and walking and atmospheric conditions described. . . . I would not say that heart organs were in as bad a condition as they possibly could be in a human body. They were very bad. He was liable to die suddenly. He could have died at any time. It was a possibility. He might have died in his sleep. Death was not due to natural causes. Excessive work raised blood pressure. When he sat down it dropped. Heart could not pump blood. A good many people with arterio-sclerosis die sudden deaths - a high percentage do. They might die sitting down or after a meal or in their sleep. I could not say the particular day's work in preference to work over previous six months caused his death. Heart disease had extended over many years, gradually becoming worse. His death probably would have been sudden. . . . Work over a number of years would not have improved condition. Had deceased not gone to work he might have been living now. If better air and conditions his length of life would have been much greater. Each day's work accelerated progress of disease. There is. apt to be a 'last straw' under these conditions." James Gordon Hislop, medical practitioner (called by the applicant) : - "On hearing conditions of work, walking and air and result of post-mortem I am of opinion that those conditions plus the disease contributed to his death. Coronary occlusion is caused by a drop in blood pressure due in most cases to inability of heart muscle to keep up pressure. This is increased by poor blood supply allowed to heart muscle by pre-existing coronary vessel sclerovis.

[47]

that "there was no real proof that the occlusion of the coronary artery which was the cause of his death arose from the deceased's - work at all." The widow has appealed to this court. i The deceased was a coal miter employed by the respondent company. He suffered from arterio-sclerosis, and any exertion might have caused a rupture of the hardened walls of an artery which might have brought about his death. Two of the three doctors who gave evidence agreed that " the deceased was a candidate for sudden death - work or no work." 4 On the day of his death Hetherington did his ordinary work in shifting stone. When he finished this work he had to return to the surface. The time spent in travelling between his working place and the surface was within the working hours for which he was paid. He had to walk up a steep incline and at one point had to climb for about sixty yards a steep series of steps known as " Jacob's Ladder" or the "Golden Stairs." He had ascended this portion of his path, and a few minutes afterwards his dead body was' discovered in a kneeling position in the centre of the road with the legs sprawled apart. A post-mortem examination showed an advanced state of arterio-sclerosis, the walls of the arteries being calcified and hardened. The three doctors who were called agreed that the cause of death was occlusion of the coronary artery. Two doctors were of opinion that his work and the walking and climbing which he had to do on the day of his death in the atmospheric con- ditions which existed in the mine contributed, together with his disease, to his death. The magistrate expressed his findings of fact in the following words : - 'I believe that Hetherington's collapse and death were due to the effect, on his already affected heart, of the exertion of the day's work and the arduous climb in foul air from the working. place to the place of his death. . . . I accept the evidence of Drs. McCall and Hislop, that death was hastened or contributed to by conditions encountered by the deceased, immediately prior to his death and throughout the day." There was evidence to support: these findings, and there is, in my opinion, no reason why they should be set aside. ¥

[87]

exertions and that, on his sitting down, it dropped and a block took place. The arterio-sclerosis had, of course, developed slowly, and the deceased's condition was such that he might have died at any time and independently of any specific exertion or effort. It is unfortunate that we have not the advantage of a full explanation and discussion of the physiological and pathological factors which are involved. Many of the reported decisions of the courts in which the sudden culmination of a morbid condition has been held to amount to injury by accident probably disclose a good deal of misconception as to pathological occurrences. Modern law seems unable to adopt tests of liability that consist in simple external occurrences, plain and objective; the law persistently turns to criteria involving causation. As a result, liability is often found to depend upon considerations which can only be elucidated by an examination of obscure phenomena and the application of scientific theories or conceptions. To add to the difficulty and uncertainty which must attend the ascertainment of rights and liabilities depend- ing on standards of such a description, the tribunals upon whom the task falls are severely limited by the rules of evidence in the sources of information and instruction on which they may rely. There can be little wonder that some unsoundness can be discovered in the combination of legal and scientific reasoning guiding-many of the decisions on claims that injury by accident has been sustained because, under the influence of particular exertion or the like, an injurious change of a pathological or physiological kind has occurred in the condition of a workman suffering from a progressive organic disease. But the court must in each instance act upon the evidence before it, and, in the present case, that evidence appears to me to support the conclusion, which, in substance, the magistrate reached, namely, that the coronary occlusion causing the worker's death came about as he was making his way to the surface and that to its occurrence at that particular time and place the exertion of his day's work and of walking towards the outlet contributed to a material extent.

At a glance

Court

Decision date

Before

Source

Judgment (121 paragraphs)