{ "id": 8527105, "name": "JOHNNY SUGGS, Employee, Plaintiff v. SNOW HILL MILLING COMPANY, Self-Insured Employer, (KEY RISK MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., Servicing Agent), Defendant", "name_abbreviation": "Suggs v. Snow Hill Milling Co.", "decision_date": "1990-10-30", "docket_number": "No. 8910IC1273", "first_page": "527", "last_page": "531", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "100 N.C. App. 527" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "N.C. Ct. App.", "id": 14983, "name": "North Carolina Court of Appeals" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 5, "name_long": "North Carolina", "name": "N.C." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "265 S.E.2d 389", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1980, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "390" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "300 N.C. 164", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8559969 ], "year": 1980, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "166" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/300/0164-01" ] }, { "cite": "340 S.E.2d 111", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 1986, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "113" }, { "page": "113" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "79 N.C. App. 572", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C. App.", "case_ids": [ 8522105 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1986, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "574" }, { "page": "574" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc-app/79/0572-01" ] }, { "cite": "283 S.E.2d 101", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "104" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "304 N.C. 44", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8565283 ], "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "49" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/304/0044-01" ] }, { "cite": "293 S.E.2d 167", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1982, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "169", "parenthetical": "emphasis in original" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "306 N.C. 357", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8568700 ], "year": 1982, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "359-60", "parenthetical": "emphasis in original" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/306/0357-01" ] }, { "cite": "N.C. Gen. Stat. \u00a7 97-12", "category": "laws:leg_statute", "reporter": "N.C. Gen. Stat.", "weight": 3, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "(1)" }, { "page": "(1)" } ], "opinion_index": 0 } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 521, "char_count": 8604, "ocr_confidence": 0.774, "pagerank": { "raw": 2.4753714792938433e-07, "percentile": 0.8069677035224834 }, "sha256": "df9688ce5dcbce326ea1569fbfbec78f3a8495bd142b98ccb0643dbfd0421501", "simhash": "1:b1eccc13c95eb406", "word_count": 1413 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T14:37:10.855162+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [ "Judges Arnold and Phillips concur." ], "parties": [ "JOHNNY SUGGS, Employee, Plaintiff v. SNOW HILL MILLING COMPANY, Self-Insured Employer, (KEY RISK MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., Servicing Agent), Defendant" ], "opinions": [ { "text": "COZORT, Judge.\nDefendant appeals from the Industrial Commission\u2019s award of total disability compensation benefits to plaintiff. The award was based on the conclusion that \u201cintoxication was not a proximate cause of the accident [which disabled the plaintiff].\u201d We affirm.\nPlaintiff Johnny Suggs, now approximately twenty-nine years old, worked at odd jobs as needed for defendant Snow Hill Milling Company (Snow Hill). Plaintiff has a history of \u201cmental and visual motor impairment\u201d dating from 1968; his I.Q. was evaluated as 64 in 1987. On 17 March 1986, William Taylor, who supervised laborers for defendant, saw Suggs at a local store and asked him to work for Snow Hill. After stopping at the defendant\u2019s mill, Taylor instructed Suggs to drive a tractor to the defendant\u2019s \u201chay farm.\u201d Suggs drove \u201cfor approximately thirty minutes\u201d along North Carolina Highways 58 and 903 to reach the farm. At the farm Suggs and Taylor placed a forklift attachment on the tractor. Taylor explained to Suggs that he was to move bales of wheat straw from a field to a brush pile. After watching Suggs move one bale, Taylor left. When Taylor returned, he discovered that a bale of straw had rolled backward off the fork lift, crushing Suggs against the tractor seat. Suggs was taken to Lenoir Memorial Hospital, where a blood alcohol test performed at 5:20 p.m. indicated that Suggs\u2019 blood alcohol content was 93 milligrams per deciliter (equivalent to a breathalyzer reading of .09). The bale that fell on Suggs (variously estimated to weigh between 500 and 800 pounds) broke his neck and paralyzed him below the upper body.\nOn 20 March 1986, Suggs filed a claim with the Industrial Commission (the Commission). On 25 April 1988, Deputy Commissioner Richard Harper entered an Opinion and Award denying the claim based on the conclusion that N.C. Gen. Stat. \u00a7 97-12(1) barred plaintiff\u2019s recovery of compensation benefits. Plaintiff appealed, and on 21 June 1989, the Full Commission entered an Opinion and Award directing the defendant to pay plaintiff permanent total disability compensation benefits. The defendant appealed.\n\u201cAppellate review of opinions and awards of the Industrial Commission is strictly limited to the discovery and correction of legal errors.\u201d Godley v. County of Pitt, 306 N.C. 357, 359-60, 293 S.E.2d 167, 169 (1982) (emphasis in original). If supported by competent facts, the Commission\u2019s findings of fact are conclusive on appeal. \u201cThis is so even though there is evidence which would support a finding to the contrary.\u201d Hansel v. Sherman Textiles, 304 N.C. 44, 49, 283 S.E.2d 101, 104 (1981). With this standard of review in mind, we turn to defendant\u2019s appeal.\nBy its first assignment of error defendant contends that the Commission applied an erroneous legal standard concerning the causal link, if any, between plaintiff\u2019s consumption of alcohol and the accident which disabled him. N.C. Gen. Stat. \u00a7 97-12 provides in pertinent part that \u201c[n]o compensation shall be payable if the injury or death to the employee was proximately caused by: (1) His intoxication, provided the intoxicant was not supplied by the employer . . . .\u201d Under \u00a7 97-12(1) the employer \u201cis required to prove only that the employee\u2019s intoxication was more probably than not a proximate cause of the accident and resulting injury.\u201d Torain v. Fordham Drug Co., 79 N.C. App. 572, 574, 340 S.E.2d 111, 113 (1986).\nPlaintiff admitted that on the day of the accident he drank two beers at \u201ceight o\u2019clock\u201d in the morning and \u201canother beer about one o\u2019clock\u201d with his lunch. The Commission heard expert opinion evidence, based on the plaintiff\u2019s blood alcohol content when tested at the hospital, that the plaintiff had an estimated blood alcohol content of 110 to 129 milligrams per deciliter (.11 to .13 in terms of a breathalyzer reading) at the time of the accident. However, the Commission also heard William Taylor testify that he did not smell alcohol on the plaintiff\u2019s breath and that he (Taylor) \u201cfelt perfectly safe in having [the plaintiff] operate that tractor.\u201d The Commission also heard evidence to the effect that the tractor\u2019s seat was blocked on one side, that the tractor was difficult to brake, and that the \u201chome made\u201d forklift attachment had a history of malfunctions, including hydraulic problems and a tendency to \u201cjerk back.\u201d We note, finally, that the Commission heard the following expert opinion evidence from Dr. John Butts:\nQ And your problem is trying to separate the two? That is, the effect of alcohol versus the effect of this man\u2019s mental condition?\nA Yes, sir. If this man had been a man of normal intelligence who had performed this task on a regular basis and was aware of how it was to be done and had experience with doing it, then I wouldn\u2019t credit much weight upon alcohol, but this was not something he was used to, had not done it before, and apparently had considerable mental handicap, I feel that I could not say in this case that alcohol was the cause.\nQ All right. Would it be your opinion then that both factors, that is this man\u2019s alcohol ingestion and resulting impairment and his prior mental retardation, were in your opinion causative factors in the resulting accident?\nA It would be my opinion that they could both be. I would be inclined to think that either one of them in and of themselves could conceivably have been the cause. It could have happened to him in the absence of alcohol and conceivably could have happened to him in the absence of mental retardation.\nIt is not the function of courts of the appellate division\nto weigh the evidence before the Industrial Commission in a workmen\u2019s compensation case. By authority of G.S. 97-86 the Commission is the sole judge of the credibility and weight to be accorded to the evidence and testimony before it. Its findings of fact may be set aside on appeal only when there is a complete lack of competent evidence to support them.\nClick v. Pilot Freight Carriers, Inc., 300 N.C. 164, 166, 265 S.E.2d 389, 390 (1980). In the case below the Commission made the following findings of fact:\n20. Plaintiff\u2019s pre-existing mental handicap was more probably than not a cause in fact of the accident resulting in his injuries. Therefore, plaintiffs mental deficiency was a proximate cause of the accident and the plaintiff\u2019s resulting injuries.\n21. The condition of defendant\u2019s tractor was more probably than not a cause in fact of the accident resulting in plaintiff\u2019s injuries, and was therefore a proximate cause of the accident.\n22. Plaintiff\u2019s consumption of alcohol was not a cause in fact of the accident resulting in his injuries, and was therefore not a proximate cause of the accident resulting in his injuries.\nCompetent evidence supports those findings, and those findings, in turn, support the conclusion that, \u201c[although plaintiff was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident, other factors caused the accident; therefore, intoxication was not a proximate cause of the accident\u201d (emphasis added). Thus, the Commission correctly applied the legal standard of causation required under N.C. Gen. Stat. \u00a7 97-12(1). See Torain, 79 N.C. App. at 574, 340 S.E.2d at 113.\nHaving reviewed the record and the briefs, we find the defendant\u2019s two remaining assignments of error to be without merit.\nFor the reasons stated above the Commission\u2019s Opinion and Award of 21 June 1989 is\nAffirmed.\nJudges Arnold and Phillips concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "COZORT, Judge." } ], "attorneys": [ "Gene Collinson Smith for plaintiff appellee.", "Maupin Taylor Ellis & Adams, P.A., by Richard M. Lewis and Jack S. Holmes, for defendant appellant." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "JOHNNY SUGGS, Employee, Plaintiff v. SNOW HILL MILLING COMPANY, Self-Insured Employer, (KEY RISK MANAGEMENT SERVICES, INC., Servicing Agent), Defendant\nNo. 8910IC1273\n(Filed 30 October 1990)\nMaster and Servant \u00a7 58 (NCI3d)\u2014 workers\u2019 compensation \u2014 intoxication not proximate cause of accident \u2014 application of correct legal standard\nThe Industrial Commission correctly applied the legal standard of causation required under N.C.G.S. \u00a7 97-12(1) when it determined that, although plaintiff was under the influence of alcohol at the time a bail of straw rolled from the forklift of a tractor plaintiff was operating and crushed him against the tractor seat, plaintiff\u2019s mental retardation and the condition of the tractor were more probably than not proximate causes of the accident, and intoxication was not a proximate cause of the accident.\nAm Jur 2d, Workmen\u2019s Compensation \u00a7\u00a7 230, 234.\nAPPEAL by defendant from the Opinion and Award of the Industrial Commission entered 21 June 1989. Heard in the Court of Appeals 29 May 1990.\nGene Collinson Smith for plaintiff appellee.\nMaupin Taylor Ellis & Adams, P.A., by Richard M. Lewis and Jack S. Holmes, for defendant appellant." }, "file_name": "0527-01", "first_page_order": 559, "last_page_order": 563 }