MATTER OF FARBER v. HARBOR SHOES COMPANY, INC., 16 N.Y.2d 634 (1965)

261 N.Y.S.2d 75, 209 N.E.2d 117

In the Matter of the Claim of SONIA FARBER, Respondent, v. HARBOR SHOES COMPANY, INC., et al., Appellants, and SPECIAL FUNDS CONSERVATION COMMITTEE, Respondent. WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION BOARD, Respondent.

Court of Appeals of the State of New York.Argued May 18, 1965
Decided May 27, 1965

Appeal from the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the Third Judicial Department.

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Kenneth K. Floyd and Philip J. Caputo for appellants.

Louis J. Lefkowitz, Attorney-General (Jorge L. Gomez, Paxton Blair and Daniel Polansky of counsel), for Workmen’s Compensation Board, respondent.

No appearance for claimant-respondent.

Order affirmed, with costs to respondent Workmen’s Compensation Board; no opinion.

Concur: Chief Judge DESMOND and Judges DYE, FULD, BURKE and SCILEPPI. Judge VAN VOORHIS dissents and votes to reverse and to dismiss the claim. Decedent’s myocardial infarction was not claimed to have been an occupational disease but an industrial accident. Claimant’s physician at first assumed that on the

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day of his heart attack (February 2, 1957) he was engaged in strenuous activity, an assumption which is not borne out by the record, and then stated that it mattered not whether his activities were strenuous as any work which he might have done on that day would have resulted in the occurrence of a serious condition. Any opinion that his death resulted from an industrial accident is speculative, and the claim is, in my judgment, without evidentiary support. Taking no part: Judge BERGAN.