CFI workmen's comp award tossed out

An over-the-road truck driver for CFI who was awarded worker's compensation benefits after suffering a heart attack on the job will not receive them.
In a ruling handed down by the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District, today, the decision to give Lawrence Gardner benefits was overturned by the judges, who sent it back to the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission with an order to deny the claim.
According to the ruling, Gardner was 45 when he began working for CFI in 1999. "Ordinarily, he pulled 53-foot vans and his only duty was to drive the truck. Once or twice each year, he had to secure his load by nailing boards beside pallets to keep the pallets from sliding on the wooden floor of the trailer."
The opinion continues, "On April 13, 2001, Gardner drove from Phoenix, Ariz., to El Paso, Texas, to pick up a load of coiled wire." After spending the night in El Paso, he drove to the business to pick up his load and blocked the load, using a claw hammer and nails to fasten two-by-fours to the trailer floor to secure the pallets.
He did that for about two hours, according to the opinion, when he began to feel "dizzy," and began having "pretty intense pains" in his shoulders and chest.
Gardner thought he had the flu, so he returned to the CFI terminal to rest, but the symptoms continued. He felt better the next day and left El Paso with the load. The symptoms soon returned and he went to an emergency room at a hospital in Van Horn, Texas. He was transferred to an El Paso hospital, where it was determined Gardner had suffered a heart attack.
"The record shows that before his heart attack, Gardner did not exercise, he was overweight (260 to 265 pounds for several years), he had high blood pressure history, and he had been a pack-a-day smoker since age 18.
After hearing the medical testimony, and examining Gardner's record, an administrative law judge ruled in favor of CFI, however, that ruling was overturned by the Labor and Industrial Relations Commission, which ruled his strenuous activity during the loading was the "significant precipitating factor," and said the heart attack was "clearly job related."
In its ruling, the court said "we conclude from a review of the whole record that Commission's finding that Claimant's April 14-15 work related incidents were substantial factors in causing his myocardial infarction was not supported by competent and substantial evidence and were contrary to the overwhelming weight of the evidence."