Wheeler v. Rhoten

¹¹ Pattison, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. In this ease, the appellee, Lester L. Rhoten, was employed by the appellant, W. L. Wheeler, as a mechanic in the latter’s garage in Hampstead, Maryland. On the 26th of January, 1922, while the appellee was engaged in repairing the brakes of an automobile brought into the garage for repair, a piece of steel or iron entered his left eye, causing an injury from which it became necessary to remove the! eye. On March 15th, 1922, he filed his claim with the State Industrial Accident Commission for the loss of his eye.

The commission heard evidence offered by the appellant, as well as the appellee, relative to the claim of the appellee, and it awarded to him $13.33 a week for the period of one hundred weeks, to be paid to him by the appellant on the order of the commission. E'rom this award an appeal was taken to the Circuit Court for Carroll County and the award of the commission was sustained or confirmed by it upon the record from the commission with other evidence heard by the court in addition thereto. The question presented by the action of the court, in its rulings upon the prayers., is whether the claimant or appellee, at the time of the injury sustained by him, was. engaged in an extra hazardous employment within the meaning of the statute, section 32, article 101, volume 3 of the Code. The contention of the appellant is that one employed as a mechanic or machinist, in a general service garage where automobiles are repaired, is not engaged in a.n extra hazardous employment, as. it is not included in the different employments mentioned and defined as extra hazardous in subsections 1 to 42, both inclusive, of section 32 of said article.

In this contention we cannot agree with the appellant, for in our opinion it falls within the provisions of subjection 4 of section 32, in which it is provided that employees engaged “in the operation, including