Neeld Construction Co. v. Mason

TTrner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. While performing his duties as a carpenter, employed by the appellant contractor in the construction of a bridge, the appellee was injured by a piece of granite projected by a blasting operation near the place where he was at work. The fragment of rock, weighing ten or fifteen pounds, struck the appellee as he raised his left arm to protect his body from the missile. The bones of the lower arm were fractured, his breast and abdomen were contused, and he was rendered unconscious by the force of the impact.

His claim under the Workmen’s Compensation Act was sustained by the State Industrial Accident Commission to the extent of an award of compensation for temporary total disability to March 1st, 1928, and for permanent partial disability since that date, during a period of one hundred and twelve weeks, for the loss of three-fourths of the use of his arm. Because the award did not recognize the claim that there was a permanent total loss of the use of his arm as a result of the accident, and a temporary total disability caused by an injury to his heart from the blow which he received, the claimant appealed to the court below, where, after a trial on issues, the order of the commission was affirmed as to the award of compensation for permanent partial disability of the arm, and its finding against the claim for injury to the heart was reversed and the case therefore remanded for the allowance of further compensation. Erom the judgment of the circuit court to that effect the employer and insurer have appealed. The principal question to be decided is raised by an exception taken because of the court’s refusal to direct the jury to render a negative answer on the issue as to whether the acci ⁵⁷³ dent caused an injury to the claimant’s heart which reduced him to a state of temporary total disability.

An instruction to that end was requested on the ground that according to all of the medical witnesses the heart disea.se with which the claimant was suffering at the time of the trial did not result from the accident. It was undisputed, however, that it developed after that occurrence. The claimant, after describing how he was struck by the piece of granite, testified, in part, as follows: “1 did not know anything after it hit me. When I came to, I was in the hospital at Havre de Grace, Md. I had no doctor myself.

Dr. Charles Foley attended me while I was in the hospital. He was representing the insurance company. I came to some time in the afternoon. When I came to they had ice on my chest and I was propped up in bed with a back rest of pillows.

I could hardly get my breath. I went to the hospital the 29th day of August, and I believe it was the second Monday in January I came out. They set my arm, put it in boards, or splints, I guess that is the medical way of expressing it. It was in splints from the 29th day of August until the 14th day of November when they had taken them off and operated on me. * * * After I got out of the hospital I did not go to work.

I could scarcely walk along the street. My heart condition was such that the least little exertion is too much. I can’t go far at a time, I get out of breath. My physical condition today is no better than it was March 1st last.

When walking I get pains in my breast; if I walk as fast as an ordinary man should walk I get short of breath and get severe pains around my heart and in that side (indicating). I never did have any trouble at all with my heart before the accident. I never had any heart murmur or any heart leakage or anything to disturb me in my work.” There was confirmatory testimony as to the claimant’s health and strength before the accident and as to his subsequent incapacity due to the impaired condition of his heart. Dr. Foley, who first attended him, testified that he had a “systolic murmur at the apex of the heart,” which is “known as valvular heart trouble.” He said “It’s not organic and it’s not traumatic.

Infection would produce it. Infection could ⁵⁷⁴ be