Picanardi v. Emerson Hotel Co.

Burke, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant was employed as a baker by the Emerson Hotel Company. The compensation paid him by the company was fifty dollars per month and board. On July 1, 1917, his left hand was caught in a bread mixer, and he sustained injuries which, in the judgment of the State Industrial Accident Commission, hereinafter referred to as the Commission, amounted to a “disability partial in character ⁹³ but permanent in quality/’ entitling him to an amount of ■compensation equal to fifty per centum of his average weekly wages.

There was no agreement between the appellant and the Emerson Hotel Company at the time of his employment fixing the money value of the board. He made application to the Commission for compensation for his injuries. On January 16th, 1918, the Commission passed a final order upon his application by which the Emerson Hotel Company, the employer, and the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, the insurer, were ordered to pay to the appellant compensation at the rate of $7.50 per week, payable weekly for the period of one hundred and fifty weeks, for the loss of the use of his hand, said compensation to begin as of July 15, 1917, subject, however, to a credit of such amount, if any, as might have been paid under a previous order of the Commission. From this order the appellant appealed to the Baltimore City Court, and from a judgment entered in favor of the defendants in that Court the appeal before us was taken.

The record contains three bills of exceptions. The first and ■second exceptions were taken to the refusal of the Court to permit the appellant, first, to prove the money value of the board, per weeh, which he received from the Hotel Company; and, secondly, to prove generally the money value of that board. There was no disputed fact in the case, and at the close of the plaintiff’s testimony the Court instructed the jury that the appellant had offered no evidence legally sufficient to entitle him to recover, and that their verdict should be for the defendants. The granting of this prayer constitutes the third exception.

It, therefore, appears that all the exceptions present but one question of law — a, narrow question involving a construction of certain provisions of the Maryland Compensation Act of 1914, Chapter 800, as amended by Chapter 597, Acts of 1916. That question is this: Is a claimant entitled under the Act to have the money value of board included as a part of his weekly wages in computing the amount of compensa ⁹⁴ tion to which he may he entitled where the money value of the board had not been fixed between his employer and himself at the time of the hiring? Judge Bond, who presided at the, trial in the lower Court, filed a written opinion upon the question before him and which is presented by the record for our decision. We insert here a portion of that opinion, as we regard the conclusion reached by him as a correct interpretation of the Act upon the point involved.

The references in his opinion are to certain sections in the Act of 1914, Chapter 800: “It is quite clear that it is the purpose of the Workmen’s Compensation Act to secure the payment of benefits, not from the unknown and uncontrolled assets of the individual employers, but ordinarily, at least, from a fund set apart in advance of losses, either in the shape of the State Accident Fund or in the shape of insurance. This fund - is to be made up of premiums payable from time to time; and to the extent that experience makes it possible to foresee, the premiums are calculated to equal in the aggregate the benefits to be paid — in addition tó incidental expenses with which we are not concerned. All the provisions of the Act concerning security for compensation are carefully designed to effectuate this plan. “The State Accident Finid is created by premiums equal to fixed percentages of the money paid under employers’ payrolls (Secs. 11, 18 and 19). Provision is made for the facilitation of calculation on the basis of these payrolls (Secs. 20 and 21).

And all this is designed to make the fund sufficiently large to cover ‘the catastrophe hazard,’ and