Opinion
March 10, 1943.
Award of death benefits. Decedent died while working in a boiler room erecting stays in connection with raising the roof. He assisted in lifting 4x4 timbers, working on top of a boiler under which a fire was burning. He died suddenly after returning to the floor level. An autopsy disclosed a weakened heart. His wife disclosed that on two previous occasions he had suffered attacks but called no physician. There is medical evidence to sustain the finding of the Board. Award affirmed, with costs to the State Industrial Board. Hill, P.J., Bliss and Heffernan, JJ., concur; Crapser and Schenck, JJ., dissent on the ground that the evidence shows decedent had recent heart trouble, that a day or two before his death he was carrying some groceries home and had an attack on a bridge and was unable to carry them; and on the further ground that the evidence in the record of the carrier's physician that he had a heart disease of some duration and that his death was not due to physical exertion but was due to the diseased heart. ( Matter of LaFountain v. LaFountain, 259 App. Div. 109 5, affd. 284 N.Y. 729; Matter of Dworak v. Greenbaum Co., 261 App. Div. 1022, affd. 287 N.Y. 555.)