Refrigerator repairman’s heart attack could be work-related: court

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York on Thursday reversed and remanded back to a workers compensation court a case where a refrigerator repairman died just after moving an appliance, deciding that earlier rulings may have failed to consider conflicting medical documentation properly.

At issue in Matter of Hanson v. General Elec. Co., is whether pre-existing hypertension and a history of smoking caused the fatal heart attack suffered by an unnamed General Electric field service technician while he was at work in 2016 or whether his having just moved a large refrigerator caused the conditions related to his death.

The company’s insurance company’s doctor “found no correlation between decedent’s employment and his death from aortic dissection” yet physicians hired by the repairman’s widow cited that work-related physical exertion caused the heart attack, one opining “that decedent’s death was the direct result of physical exertion and stress from moving the refrigerator,” according to documents.

In legal wrangling over whether evidence was properly filed, a workers compensation law judge awarded benefits but the Workers’ Compensation Board reversed, “finding that the record needed development” and directed the employer and its insurer “to be provided an opportunity to produce a records review of the medical evidence.” A later appeal before the board and the judge ruled that some medical evidence was inadmissible.

The state appellate court cited inconsistencies in the board’s direction over submitting medical evidence in favor of the widow’s case and a “reliance on an inaccurate reading of the record” called for the case to be remanded back to the board.