Carroll's Case

225 Mass. 203
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedNovember 28, 1916
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 225 Mass. 203 (Carroll's Case) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carroll's Case, 225 Mass. 203 (Mass. 1916).

Opinion

Loring, J.

This is an appeal by the insurer from a decree directing it to pay to one Mary Carroll the sum of $111.21, being one half her average weekly wages from April 7 to September 27, 1915; and in addition to pay her $4.50 a week from September 27,1915, until this order is revised under St. 1911, c. 751, Part III, §12.

Mary Carroll was an employee of a manufacturing company of which the appealing insurance company was the insurer. Qn October 21,1912, she hurt her back by lifting a box weighing some two hundred pounds. The arbitration committee found that this was an injury arising out of and in the course of her employment. She went home and was unable to do any work for four weeks. At the expiration of that time, namely, on November 18, 1912, she returned to work. Thereafter she continued to work for her employer until April 7, 1915. During this period from time to time she was not able to work and in this way she lost one hundred and twelve days in all. On April 7, 1915, she found that she was no longer able to work. She then left her employment and since then has done no work. At -no time did she file a written notice of her injury. But the manufacturing company sent a report of the accident to the Industrial Accident Board on the day after the accident, namely, on October 22, 1912. She filed a claim for compensation on July 6, 1915.

[205]*205It appeared from her testimony (and both the arbitration committee and the Industrial Accident Board gave credit to her story) that when she lifted the box something cracked in her back, the sight left her eyes, she became dizzy and faint and she had to lean on a fence in order to walk to the car which took her home. When she got home she immediately went to bed. During the four weeks she was away from the mill she was in bed for a day and a half and every day had to lie in bed more or less on account of pain in her back. Her husband was sick and she had only one boy then at work. Under these circumstances she testified there was nothing left for her to do but go to work when she did. She gave various reasons for not making a claim for compensation which are not now material.

The claim for compensation was heard by an arbitration committee on September 27, 1915. The findings of the committee were in substance these: On April 7, 1915, when the petitioner finally stopped work, she was no longer able to work; “her back trouble, attacks of nausea, loss of weight and strength, which caused her to give up her work on April 7,1915, were the result of the injury sustained on October 21, 1912, probably due to the effect of a dislocated right kidney in a somewhat weakened condition, though not troubling her before said injury.” The report of the committee ended in these words: “The committee rules that her claim for compensation was filed and made seasonably on July 6, 1915, because made within a reasonable time following the period when her practical disability began resulting from the injury on April 7,1915; that she thereafter made her claim as soon as she learned from her physician and counsel as to the cause of her disabled condition which compelled her finally to abandon work.” In an earlier part of the report the committee made this finding: In April, 1915, her physician “diagnosed her trouble as a movable or dislocated kidney caused by the injury of October 21, 1912. After some correspondence and interviews following this with her counsel and the office of the Industrial Accident Board, she filed her claim for compensation on July 6, 1915.” With respect to the two weeks beginning November 4 and ending November 18, 1912, the committee made this finding: “She did not claim compensation for the brief time she was out of work immediately following the injury, a compensation period of two [206]*206weeks, because she did not care to run a risk of losing her position by so doing, which she believed to be the case. . . . Her compensation period immediately following the injury, for a disability of two weeks, was so small that the committee finds that the fact she did not make a claim at the time of this brief incapacity should not prejudice or prevent her rights when her real and practical disability arose on April 7, 1915.” The committee decided that the petitioner was entitled to compensation of $5 a week for total disability (1) from November 4, 1912, to November 18,1912; and (2) from April 7, 1915, to September 27, 1915; and (3) that said weekly payment should continue during her disability.

On appeal the Industrial Accident Board found that the different portions of the evidence (stating some of them) “all sustain the claim that her condition is connected by an unbroken chain of causation with the injury of October 21, 1912. The evidence warrants the finding that the employer had knowledge of the injury and that the claim for compensation was filed and made seasonably within the requirements of Part III, Sections 15 and 16.” We assume that by this is meant within the requirements of Part II, § 15. The board then affirmed and adopted the findings and decision of the arbitration committee “with this exception, that we find that the average weekly wages of the employee were $9.50 as shown by the report of the injury.” By their decision they found that there was due to the employee the sum of $111.21, being one half the average weekly wages from April 7, 1915, to the date of the hearing on September 27, 1915, and that a weekly payment of $4.50 should continue from that date until the order was revised under St. 1911, c. 751, Part III, § 12.

The finding “that the employer had knowledge of the injury” was based on a report made to the Industrial Accident Board by the manufacturing company on October 22, 1912. In the report the description of the injury was in these words: “Mrs. Carroll was attempting to put a truck she wanted to use over a piece of shafting that had been left on the floor which caused the strain to her back.” As to the nature of the injury the report stated: “Dr. Blanchette is attending Mrs. Carroll now and will report his findings to us later.” Her average weekly earnings are stated in that report to be $9.50.

It is not clear what the grounds are on which the committee and [207]*207the board proceeded in ruling that the claim filed on July 6, 1915, based on an injury sustained on October 21, 1912, “was filed and made seasonably within the requirements” of the act, to quote the terms of the finding made by the board upon this point. In addition to this special finding the board affirmed and adopted the findings and decision of the arbitration committee. This general finding and adoption of the findings of the committee do not add to the specific finding mentioned above. We have already stated the findings of the committee in this regard.

The learned counsel for the petitioner has undertaken to uphold this conclusion of the board on the authority of Johnson’s Case, 217 Mass. 388. In that case it was held that the date of an injury consisting of lead poisoning caused by the absorption of lead in the system was the date “when, elimination failing, the poison stored up manifested itself in the personal injury and the incapacity which resulted therefrom.” But this case does not come within that decision. The injury here occurred when the petitioner lifted the box on. October 21, 1912. In the case at bar the day (namely April 7, 1915,) when the petitioner became incapacitated to do any work was not the date of the occurrence of the injury but was the date of the final result of the injury which occurred on October 21, 1912.

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Bluebook (online)
225 Mass. 203, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carrolls-case-mass-1916.