Noyes v. Liddle

Adkins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellee, employed by Victor P. Noyes, one of the appellants, to gallop horses and work in the stable, while engaged in “haying” and preparing to feed the horses on Saturday afternoon, May 20th, 1933, noticed that a windstorm had come up and a thunderstorm was approach ³³⁶ ing. Realizing that in the event of a storm it always “blows” in the front stable, he went there for the purpose of shutting the doors of that stable. Claimant testified: “I went to shut these doors, I felt something go in my eye and I didn’t pay much attention to it — I wiped my face and I didn’t feel it for awhile, and Sunday I didn’t feel anything and Monday morning when I got up about 5 o’clock my eye was hurting me awful bad, and * * * I asked Mr. Gibbs (an employee on the place) if he could see something in my eye and he seen something in my eye and took it out, and it was a little black pebble.” “Q. Did you feel anything strike your eye when you closed the door?” “Ans.

Yes. * * * Just like you walk along and something strikes you in the eye.” Gibbs testified that on Monday morning Liddle came along with his eye tied up “and I asked him what was the matter, and he said something was in it, and I took and turned the lid and saw something in it and took the handkerchief and wiped it off * * * he said he got it sometime Saturday evening when he was shutting the doors up.” The Industrial Accident Commission found that the claimant was temporarily totally incapacitated as a result of said injuries, and awarded him compensation at the rate of $12.31 per week payable by the employer and insurer during the continuance of his disability, subject to further consideration “when the extent of permanent disability can be determined.” There was a subsequent hearing on the petition of the insurer to reopen the case to determine whether or not the claimant’s injury arose out of and in the course of his employment. That was the only issue. The commission found for the claimant on the issue raised, and affirmed its previous order. An appeal was entered from this order by the employer and insurer.

Later, a hearing was requested “(1) To determine the date upon which temporary total disability ceased; (2) To determine whether or not the claimant is entitled to permanent partial disability.” On this hearing the commission ordered that payments ³³⁷ of compensation for temporary total disability cease as of August 1st, 1933, and that the employer and insurer pay compensation at the rate of $12.31 per week for one hundred weeks for permanent partial disability occasioned by total industrial loss of vision of the left eye. There was also an appeal from this order. By agreement the two appeals were consolidated and the case was tried on the following issue: “Did the alleged injury suffered by claimant, William Liddle, on May 20, 1933, arise out of and in the course of his employment?” So that is the sole question involved in this appeal, and the only contention of appellants is that there was no legally sufficient evidence in the case to show that appellee suffered an accidental injury on May 20th, 1933, arising out of and in the course of his employment. And the only exception reserved was to the refusal of the trial court to grant the employer’s and insurer’s demurrer prayer on that issue.

It is not denied by appellants that the injury was accidental or that it occurred in the course of the employment, but it is strenuously argued that it did not arise “out of the employment,” and that is the only question argued by appellants. As was said in Baltimore Dry Docks & Shipbuilding Co. v. Webster, 139 Md. 616, 626 , 116 A. 842, 846 , the cases in which “the words ‘arising out of and in the course of the employment’ have been construed * * * as precedents, furnish