Gratz v. Bethlehem Steel Co.

³⁴ Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. For an accidental injury received by Steve Gratz, on April 24th, 1929, in the course of his employinent by the Bethlehem Steel Company, he was awarded compensation by the State Industrial Accident Commission. The injury required the amputation of the employee’s; right leg, and the order of the Commission provided that he be paid eighteen dollars per week during the period of his resulting temporary total disability and, in addition, eighteen dollars per week for permanent partial disability; the latter payments to begin when his temporary total disability ended. On August 10th, 1929, IGratz died in consequence of the injury for which he was being compensated.

His total disability had continued uninterruptedly to the time of his death, and the specified compensation for such disability was paid to that time. Thereafter his dependent widow claimed, and was awarded by the Commission, under the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Law, payments at the rate of eighteen dollars per week for a period of 277 and a fraction weeks, as compensation for the loss of her husband’s support, and a sum not exceeding $125 for the expenses of his funeral. The employer and insurer, while' duly complying with that order, applied to* the Commission for the rescission of the award which had been made for permanent partial disability on the assumption that the total disability would be temporary. The widow of the deceased employee, in the capacity of administratrix of his estate, opposed the employer’s application, and claimed that she was entitled to'receive the weekly payments directed to* be made for permanent partial disability, while collecting also individually, as her husband’s dependent, the compensation for his death which the Commission had awarded.

From an order of the Commission rescinding the award for permanent partial disability, the administratrix appealed to* the Baltimore City Court, and from its judgment affirming the Commission’s order her appeal to* this court was entered. The appellant’s claim as administratrix to the compensation awarded her husband for permanent partial disability is ³⁵ based upon a provision in the subsection of the Workmen’s Compensation Law relating to partially disabling injuries, as follows: “If an employee dies, the right to any compensation payable under this subsection, unpaid at the date of his death, shall survive to and vest in his, personal representatives.” Code, art. 101, sec. 36, subsee. (3). It is argued that the order of the Commission making the award established a right in the injured employee In his lifetime, which could not be affected by an order passed after his death, and which the administratrix of his estate may, therefore, successfully assert.

This, contention attributes to the original order a purpose and