Opinion
May 11, 1949.
Appeal from Workmen's Compensation Board.
Present — Foster, P.J., Heffernan, Brewster, Deyo and Bergan, JJ. [See post, p. 1005.]
The award was for reduced earnings due to disability occasioned by pulmonary tuberculosis as an occupational disease, which, appellants contend, was not competently sustained in fact or in law. Claimant's employment in question was that of a laboratory technician. The evidence is that upon entering it, in 1938, she was free from disease. She has no family history of tuberculosis nor that of contact with persons so afflicted except in the course of her employment wherein such contacts did occur, both as to patients so afflicted as well as in her exposure to cultures of live tubercle bacilli and sputum specimens containing them. Her health became somewhat impaired a few months prior to May, 1946, when X-ray examinations disclosed the tubercular affliction. The evidence and the reasonable inferences it permits, coupled with the applicable presumptions, support the decision and award. Decision and award unanimously affirmed, with costs to be divided between the claimant and the Workmen's Compensation Board.