Atlantic Coast Shipping Co. v. Stasiak

Adkins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Michael Stasiak, the appellee, a stevedore forty-eight years old, on January 4th, 1929, while working on a pier of the Western Maryland Kailway Company, in the employ of the ³⁵⁰ Atlantic Coast Shipping Company, one of the appellants, developed a hernia, described in the physician’s report to the State Industrial Accident Commission as a “large inguinal hernia.” He testified: “We were loading tin plate on trucks, and as I was throwing it to my partner, there were two of us, and then I felt a pain * * * then I pressed at the place where I felt the pain and the pain disappeared, and then I continued to work until five.” He subsequently underwent an operation which appears to have been successful. The injury did not result from any. external force and there is nothing in the record to indicate that there was any unusual strain of any conditions not incident to the work in which he was engaged. On cross-examination he testified that he was doing the ordinary work of a stevedore, that nothing slipped or fell, and that he was doing what all the other stevedores were doing at the time he felt the pain.

He was denied compensation by the commission and took an appeal to the Baltimore City Court, where the following issues were submitted to the jury. 1. Bid Michael Stasiak, plaintiff, sustain an accidental injury, on or about the 4th day of January, 1929, while in the employ of the Atlantic Coast Shipping Company, Inc. ? 2. Bid the said injury result out of and in the course of his employment ? The jury found for the claimant on both issues, and judgment was entered on the verdict.

This appeal is from that judgment. At the conclusion of claimants testimony the. defendants asked for a directed verdict on each issue. We think there was error in refusing to withdraw the case from the jury on the first issue. The injury was not an accidental injury within the meaning of our Compensation Law.

This case is governed by Slacum v. Jolley, 153 Md. 343 , and Miskowiak v. Bethlehem Steel Company, 156 Md. 690 . In each of these cases there were two questions: (1) Whether ³⁵¹ death of a workman was caused by heat prostration; (2) If so, was it an accidental injury within the meaning of