Cumberland & Allegany Gas Co. v. Caler

Adkins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a claim for compensation by appellee against appellants, the employer and insurer, for injury to his right eye from acid splashed in it while repairing gas meters on October 8th, 1927. The claim was disallowed by the Industrial Accident Commission, and an appeal taken to the Circuit Court for Allegany County. The issues submitted to the jury were: 1.

Is the present disability of the claimant, Albert F. Caler, the result of an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of his employment by the Cumberland and Allegany Gas Company on or about the 8th day of October 1927 ? 2. Did the claimant, Albert F. Caler, sustain a total disability as the result of an accidental injury while in the employ of the Cumberland and Allegany Gas Company ? To each of these issues the jury answered “Yes”; and on that verdict judgment was entered reversing the order of the commission. This appeal is from that judgment.

The most important exception is to the refusal of defendants’ demurrer prayer. It is earnestly contended that there was no evidence legally sufficient to support appellee’s claim that the injury of which ho complained was the result of the splashing of acid in his eye; that the expert testimony offered ⁵⁹⁸ by claimant at most proved only that the injury could have resulted from that cause; while defendants proved by two medical experts that it did not result from that cause; that in view of the adverse finding of the commission, claimant failed to meet the burden imposed upon him by the statute. As to the last, that concerns the weight of the testimony, with which this court has nothing to do in considering demurrer prayers. And as to the medical testimony offered by claimant, it may be conceded that standing alone it would not have been sufficient to take the case to the jury.

But it does not follow that claimant’s case must fail for that reason. In our opinion there was testimony from which a reasonable mind could infer, not only that the injury could have resulted, but that it did result, from the cause assigned. Claimant testified he had had myopia, or near sightedness, for a number of years and had lost the sight of his left eye, seven years before the injury complained of, from being struck in that eye by a boxing glove, but that up to the time of the injury from the acid the sight of his right eye was good; that he was examined for life and accident insurance by the Equitable Life Insurance Company and passed in 1917; that he was examined in 1920 and 1922 by two industrial companies with whom he sought employment and was passed; that since 1918 he had been using the same glasses and had no difficulty in reading newspapers or examining meters or doing other work which required good eyesight; that after the acid got into his eye his vision was clouded and confused; that he could not read, and everything seemed to be in a shadow; that he returned to work on Monday after the accident, which occurred on Saturday, and told the inspector at the shop that he would have to quit, that he could hardly get along at all, but the inspector told him to “hang on”; that he was taken to two doctors, who prescribed for him, but neither did him any good; that if he tried to read and looked at a word two or three letters would be missing, he seemed to be looking through a glass bead in the centre of his eye; that he was thinking of his eye and testing his vision constantly and became alarmed about it; that about a week after the accident ⁵⁹⁹ witness was working in a cellar and owing to defective vision bumped his head into a pipe, which “made my eye look like there was a million little lights or little stars all fluttering-at the same time,” and gave him an intense headache; that his sight got worse and worse from day to day; that on February 3rd, while he was taking a census of the different-kinds of appliances used by the consumers, he walked into the cellar of a house and bumped his head against the support that held up the joists, and in an hour after that he couldn’t tell the numbers on the houses; that he wasn’t able to work after that; that he went to the "Wilmer Institute, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and remained there from February 1th to-March 1st, but got worse instead of better. At the time of the trial he testified he could tell the difference between light and darkness, but that was about all; that he could not see any. one sitting in front of him, could not see to do any work.

Claimant was corroborated by his wife as to his impaired vision immediately after the accident of October 8th. Dr. Louis A. Wit-zeman, an eye specialist of Akron,