Nicholson v. Walters

Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. At the trial, in the Circuit Court for Kent County, of an appeal by the widow of Joseph Charles Walters, deceased, from the disallowance of her claim under the Workmen’s Compensation Law, the issue as to whether his death resulted from an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment was submitted to the jury and was answered by their verdict in the affirmative. On this appeal from the judgment entered in pursuance of the verdict, the only question raised by exceptions in the record is whether there was any legally sufficient evidence justifying the submission of the issue to the jury. Walters was regularly employed at an ice manufacturing plant at Chestertown.

He was a general utility man. It was his duty at times to deliver ice from the factory to cars on the railway near which it was located. After beginning his work on the morning of June 24th, 1925, he left the plant temporarily, and while returning across the railway track he was struck by a train and fatally injured. Just before leaving the factory, he had been helping the superintendent to make some repairs on the building.

It does not appear ¹⁸ that there was any occasion for him to take ice to the cars on that morning. But there was testimony to the effect that when Walters was being removed from the place of the accident, immediately after it occurred, the employer’s superintendent was asked how the injured man happened to be there, and explained that he had sent Walters to a junk house beyond the railroad to get some plugs which were needed at the factory. It was proved that the point where the train struck Walters was nearly in a direct line between the factory and the junk house. The superintendent denied that he made the statement attributed to him, but the conflict in the evidence on that subject presented a problem for the jury, and not for the court, to solve.

The evidence produced by the claimant, if believed by the jury, clearly admitted of die inference that the decedent