LOSS OF EYE

Evening Star, Issue 19025, 21 August 1925, Page 2

LOSS OF EYE

CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION FAILS JARVIS v. HARBOR BOARD. His Honor Mr Justice Frazer (president) has given judgment in the case Samuel William Jarvis v. the Otago Harbor Board, claim for loss of an eye, which was hoard before the Arbitration Court at_ Dunedin on July 25 and 30_ last. In giving judgment liis Honor said that under the circumstances the court was bound to conclude that the plain till had not discharged the onus of proving that there was a causal covmeo tion between the accidental burn and the rodent ulcer that subsequently developed. Judgment would be for the defendant board, with leave reserved to it to apply for costs. MVP. S. Anderson appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr A. N. Ilaggitt lor the defendant board. Tho judgment of the court is as follows ;

Tho pla in till claims to recover compensation from the defendant board for the loss of his left eye. 'lhc facts are that on October 17, 1924, the plaintiff, while in the employ of the Harbor Board, was working on a pile-driver set up on a punt. A steam engine was erected on the dock of tho punt, some 3511 from the staging of the pile-driver on which the plaintiff was working. A red-hot cinder from the_ funnel of the engine was blown against tho inner angle of the plaintiff’s loft eyelid, causing a small burn about tho size > of a match-head. If is claimed that this burn resulted in the development of a cancerous condition, known as basal cell carcinoma or rodent ulcer, which led to tho removal of plaintiff’s left eye. Tho plaintiff’s evidence ns to the burn received by him was corroborated by that of other witnesses, and tho court is_ satisfied that he met with the injury in tho manner described. The court is satisfied, also, from the evidence of the plaintiff and other witnesses, that ho treated the burn with a simple horacic wash, for some days, and that tho reddening of the skin due to the burn was followed by a blister, which'later became a scab, and that a watery discharge came from tho scab. After the scab canto away an inflammatory condition persisted at tho site ol the burn, with a watery exudate. This grew worse, though plaintiff treated it with an ointment prescribed by Dr J. F. Bowio, and it was definitely diagnosed as a rodent ulcer early in March, 1925. It was necessary to remove the plaintiff’s left eye, and an operation was performed on March 12, 1925, by which the eye and the carcinoma and surrounding tissues wore removed. The plaintiff claims, on these facts, that the court should find that the accidental injury of October 17, 1924, either caused the rodent ulcer to develop or accelerated its development. There was a general consensus tlf opinion among the medical witnesses that there was no ground for the belief that tho rodent ulcer was caused by tho burn, but opinion was divided ns to whether tho burn and consequent irritation had accelerated its development. The points stressed by the medical witnesses for the plaiptiff were (a) that the rodent ulcer had developed on the exact site of the burn; (b) that tho eyelid had not given any trouble previously to being burned, and that nothing unusual about it had been noticed before October 17, 1924; (c) that the site of the burn bad never been healthy at any time after the burn had been received; and (d) that irritation was recognised by the medical profession as inducing cancer. To the lay mind the chain of causation appears complete, and the logic of the plaintiff’s claim unanswerable. The points stressed by the plaintiff’s medical witnesses are not, however, so cogent as they appear at first sight. As to (a, basal cell carcinoma or rodent nicer very commonly attacks the inner anglo of the eye, and a high percentage of rodent ulcers arc found in that area. The direction in which the rodent ulcer extended in this case was somewhat unusual, in that it was downwards, instead of inwards towards the nose; but this circumstance does not appear to have any special weight. The groat majority of rodent ulcers appear spontaneously, without any apparent exciting cause. There does not seem, therefore, to bo any special reason for associating the rodent ulcer in this case with the burn on the same part of the eyelid. As to (b), a rodent ulcer makes its appearance gradually and develops slowly, and the fact of its appearance shortly after tho burn may have been a pure coincidence. As to (c), this is really only a development of point (b), and it is met by a similar answer. As to (d), there is no record of a rodent nicer having been caused or accelerated by a burn, though thousands of cases have been investigated. The history of cancer research shows that, where irritation has been an exciting factor, it has always been a protracted and chronic irritation.

It therefore appears that, while the points stressed by the medical witnesses for the plaintiff seem, on first consideration, to afford a soulid basis, severally and cumulatively, for an inference that the development of the rodent ulcer in the present case was accelerated by the accidental burn received by the plain-) tiff, that basis is seriously weakened by the medical evidence tendered on behalf of the defendant board. It is a simple matter to argue "post hoc, ergo proptor hoc." and it is a tendency to which we are all prone; but, as has been laid down repeatedly, the court must not hazard guesses, but may only draw inferences from proved or admitted facts. Viewed as a whole, the medical evidence amounts to this; that while in the plaintiff’s case a rodent ulcer doveloped on the site of a burn shortly after that born had been received, and without the skin at the site of the hum having at any time completely healed, vet of all the cases of rodent nicer investigated and recorded none has been known to have arisen from a burn or from a trifling and temporary irritation : and, furthermore, the inner angle of the eye is one of tho commonest places for » rodent ulcer to develop spontaneously. A conclusion that the rodent ulcer was caused or accelerated in its development by tho burn involves, accordingly, a disregard of the information as to the causation of cancer collected by skilled observers over many years. It is, of course, possible that the irritation caused by the burn stimulated in some way the microscopic nodule from which a basal cell carcinoma develops, or aggravated in some unknown manner a precancerous condition, but in tho light of the scientific knowledge at present available it is impossible to affirm that it had any effect, or more than a trifling effect, in accelerating the development of the carcinoma. It is at least equally likely that tho carcinoma developed spontaneously, and that the fact that the plaintiff had recently suffered a burn on a spot that is peculiarly liable to be attacked by that disease was merely a coincidence. One has only to consider the great number of cases of rodent ulcer that occur rvithout any special assignable cause, and the vastly greater number of cases of trivial burns from cinders and fragments of hot metal that occur every day, none of which, .has so far been associated by medical observers with the subsequent»development of rodent ulcer, and the great majority of which are never followed by rodent ulcer at all. in order to realise that it would be unwarrantable to discard the theory of coincidence in favor of the theory of causation. The adoption of the latter theory would, in fact, be mere guesswork, and not a legitimate inference from’all the facts of tho case. In many respects tint case is similar to that considered by the court in Pringle v, Otago Harbor Board (1922, U.L.R., 215). and the reasoning set out in the judgment in that case is applicable to the present case. The court is,

in such circumstances, bound to conclude that the, plaintiff has not discharged the onus of proving that there was a causal connection between the accidental burn and the rodent ulcer that subsequently developed. Judgment will be for the _ defendant board, and leave reserved to it to apply for costs.