Claim of Pickerell v. Schumacher

Headnote

Workmen’s compensation — master and servant ■— apoplexy alleged to be due to effort of driver of automobile to avert accident.

Pickerell v. Schumacher, 215 App. Div. 745 , affirmed.

Appeal from an order of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the third judicial department, entered December 18, 1925, modifying and affirming as modified an award of the State Industrial Board made under the Workmen’s Compensation Law. The claim for compensation was made upon the theory that the claimant in attempting to avert an accident sustained a cerebral apoplexy, due to increased muscular effort in the operation of an automobile hearse.. As he was driving the hearse up a grade which led into the cemetery at Borodino, the car immediately preceding it Was stalled and the claimant applied his emergency brake for the purpose of stopping his car but the brake was not effective and

the car started to back up. Claimant pulled the steering wheel to the right and after bacldng down a distance of about twenty feet backed the hearse into a bank on the left side of the road. There is evidence that while in bed early the following morning he suffered a partial stroke followed by another eight days thereafter.