Mayor of Baltimore v. Schwind

Parke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, a municipal corporation, was held by the State Industrial Accident Commission and, on appeal, by the Baltimore City Court, ⁶² to be liable to pay compensation to Kate Schwind, sixty-three years old, a janitress in one of the public schools of the municipality, for injuries that have resulted from a paralytic stroke which she alleges was caused by an accident in the course of her daily labor. On the day of the attack a ladder had been left standing in a hall of the school building on the second story. In some unexplained way the ladder fell, and, in the course of its fall, the upper end struck a transom over a doorway and broke the glass, which fell to the floor.

The janitress was at work on the same floor and was not present when this occurred. She later observed what had happened and went downstairs and told the principal, and then saw the janitor in the fire room and informed him, and requested that he move the ladder out of the way so that the teachers could get to the dressing room. She then went upstairs and waited for the janitor, who did not come promptly, and the claimant picked up the ladder, as it was time for the teachers to go into the dressing room, and the fallen ladder was in the way. The claimant described what happened in these words: “I moved the ladder — when I got it up a piece, well it slipped and I wrenched my side.

I managed to get it up —I had a pain in the side of my head. I stood there for a little while, started to pick up the glass, and the janitor came up, picked the ladder up, took it on the third floor, came down, helped to pick up the .glass. By the time it was all cleaned the principal came up, asked where the ladder was, I said it was carried on the third floor, she turned around and went downstairs, I waited a few minutes. I went in, finished the glass and was on my second class (sic), went over and closed the window and I lost the use of my left leg.

I waited a little while and went over near the door, and sent for one of the teachers * * * and told her I had hurt my left side. I didn’t know what was wrong.” The claimant continued at work for about twenty minutes, when she lost the use of her whole left side, but she did not lose consciousness, and, after some delay, she was put upon a stretcher and taken ⁶³ home. She had never moved the ladder before, and her explanation of why she attempted to do so was that she wanted to get everything cleaned up and the teachers could not get into the dressing room with the ladder barring the way. Moller Motor Car Co. v. Unger, 166 Md. 198 , 170 A. 777 .

Although this testimony is contradicted in many of its material facts, it must be accepted by the court as true in the determination of the question whether as a matter of law the claimant is entitled to compensation. So, on the assumption that the facts are as stated, and that the testimony of the medical experts is also correct, that the paralysis of the claimant might have been the direct result of the fact that the lifting of the ladder raised her blood pressure beyond “the point that her hardening arteries would stand it and she suddenly had a rupture,” the points to be decided are whether, at the time of the happening of the injury: (a) the claimant was a workman; and (b) the municipality was an employer within the meaning of article 101 of the Code; and (c) the injury was accidental within the meaning of the article; and, finally, (d) the employment was extra-hazardous within the inclusion of the article. The municipality concedes the claimant was a workman. Baltimore v. Trunk, 172 Md. 35 , 190 A. 756 .

Every one of the remaining three essentials of the right to compensation is a subject of controversy between the parties. If the description of the circumstances by the claimant be found to be true, the paralysis which developed as a casual consequence of the rupture of a blood vessel by the claimant, in her unusual effort to lift and place a long and unwieldy ladder, must be accepted as an accidental injury arising out of and in the course of her employment, within the meaning of the statute as defined in the decisions. Geipe v. Collett, 172 Md. 165 , 190 A. 836 ; Ross v. Smith, 169 Md. 86 , 179 A. 173 ; State Roads Commission v. Reynolds, 164 Md. 539 , 165 A. 475 ; Schemmel v. T. B. Gatch & Sons Co., 164 Md. 671 , 166 A. 39 ; Waddell George’s Creek Coal Co. v. Chisholm, 163 ⁶⁴ Md. 49, 161 A. 276 ; Celanese Corp. v. Lease, 162 Md. 587 , 160 A. 801 ; Slacum v. Jolley, 153 Md. 343 , 138 A. 244 ; Kauffman Const. Co. v. Griffith, 154 Md. 55 , 139 A. 548 ; Jackson v. Ferree, 173 Md. 400 , 196 A. 107 .

It was an untoward event which she neither expected nor intended. The unforeseen mishap took place in the course of her employment as janitress. Her duties required her to clean up the classrooms, the restaurant, with its kitchen, which was conducted in connection with the school, to wash transoms, with the help of a five foot ladder, to keep the toilet clean and to scrub the floors on hands and knees, and, generally, to do the common work of a janitress. It was while she was so engaged that she found, it necessary, on account of the delay of the janitor in coming to do the work, and the immediate need of the women teachers to go to the dressing room, to act in the emergency thus created by attempting to raise the ladder and put it out of the way.

Although this was not strictly within the ordinary duties of her service, yet this sphere must be determined upon a general survey of the nature of the employment, its conditions, obligations and incidents. She was hired to keep the premises fit for use, and, although the fall of the ladder, and its breaking the glass of the transom and scattering the fragments on the floor, were an unusual occurrence, it was unquestionably her work to remove the glass and get the room in condition for use, and it was in natural and reasonable connection with the proper performance of this work for the janitress to move the ladder, and the court cannot say as a matter of law that her act was in any way inconsistent with her continuing within her employment. The act was not done for the servant’s purpose, but her conduct was on her master’s account, and as janitress, and any peril which she thereby encountered, even if in consequence of her negligence or carelessness, if directly or indirectly involved by her contract of service, would be an incident of and within the scope of her employment. At the time of the