REED v. BRINSON ELECTRIC CO., 50 So.2d 877 (Fla. 1951)

REED v. BRINSON ELECTRIC CO. ET AL.

Supreme Court of Florida, en Banc.
February 23, 1951.

Appeal from the Circuit Court, Pinellas County, John Dickinson, J.

Horace W. Bittenbender, St. Petersburg, for appellant.

William G. Gardiner, St. Petersburg, and Wendell C. Heaton, Tallahassee, for appellees.

OGILVIE, Associate Justice.

This is another Workmen’s Compensation case arising in Pinellas County. The testimony was heard by a Deputy Commissioner, who found that “Claimant has failed to establish a causative connection between the injury and his employment, and has otherwise failed to establish his claim in contemplation of the requirements of the Florida Compensation Acts, and therefore the claim for compensation benefits should be disallowed.” Thereupon, the matter was reviewed by the full Industrial Commission, and the Deputy Commissioner’s findings and order were affirmed. Then an appeal to the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial Circuit was perfected, and said Circuit Court entered an order affirming said order of the full Industrial Commission. Now the matter is being considered on appeal to this Court.

The burden is on the Claimant to establish a causal connection between his injury and his employment; and in Claimant’s effort to establish this connection, considerable evidence, including expert testimony, was offered. In fact, one medical expert attending the Claimant after his alleged injury, diagnosed his case as Idiopathic grand mal Epilepsy, as disclosed by the testimony and hospital records in evidence; on the other hand, another who first saw Claimant nine months after the alleged accident diagnosed his

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case as a brain injury possibly caused by the accident suffered while in the course of his employment. There appears of record substantial proofs, which if believed to be true, sustain the findings of fact of the Deputy Commissioner and which were affirmed by the full Industrial Commission and Circuit Court. Appellant having failed to show that these findings of fact were clearly erroneous, the judgment appealed from is sustained.

TERRELL, Acting Chief Justice, and THOMAS, ADAMS, HOBSON and ROBERTS, JJ., concur.

CHAPMAN, J., dissents.