Transcon Lines v. Brotherton

McINERNEY, Justice.

Under review here is the trial tribunal’s decision by which employer was adjudged liable for claimant’s permanent total disability to the body as a whole. The decisive question is whether under our Workmen’s Compensation Act the employer may be liable for the cumulative effect produced by claimant’s accidental knee injury and by his pre-existing non-compen-sable heart disease, when the latter condition, though admittedly unaggravated and unaccelerated by the injury, renders corrective surgery on the knee dangerous to claimant’s life and thereby prevents him from reducing…