Opinion
Opinion January 24, 1929.
WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT. WORDS "SUDDEN" AND "ACCIDENT" CONSTRUED.
In the Workmen's Compensation Act the word "sudden" as employed in the definition of "accident" does not mean instantaneous. Disability caused by, and following a few hours after chafing may be properly found to be accidental. Words are to be construed according to the common meaning of language. When an employee, standing upon a ladder while working, chafes his leg against a rung of the ladder, and there results the following night a swelling of the leg and consequent disablement, such injury is, according to the common use of the word, accidental.
Ferris Case, 123 Me., 193, differentiated.
A Workman's Compensation Act case. Appeal from the decree of a single Justice affirming the decree of the Industrial Accident Commission awarding Alva W. McDougal compensation for an injury alleged to have been occasioned in the performance of his duties as an electrician in the Sanford Mills. The petitioner alleged that on the fifth day of February, 1928, while working as an electrician in the employ of the Sanford Mills his duties required him to stand on a stepladder, and necessitated throwing his weight forward against the next step above; that this chafing and friction resulted in the rupture of a blood vessel in his left leg, and bruises of the shin followed by infection. Upon hearing the Associate Legal Member found that petitioner suffered an "accident" as alleged and awarded him compensation for a period of seven weeks at the rate of $17.31 per week.
Appeal dismissed. Decree affirmed. The case sufficiently appears in the opinion.
Alva W. McDougal, pro se.
Harris Wilson, for respondent.
SITTING: WILSON, C. J., PHILBROOK, DEASY, BARNES, BASSETT, JJ.
The Industrial Accident Commission speaking through its associate legal member finds that the petitioner was injured by accident. The defendant contends that the injury was not accidental. If the finding of the Commissioner is based upon any competent evidence there is no issue of law, reviewable by this Court.
On February 5, 1928, the petitioner, an electrician, was engaged in "swinging" a conduit pipe on the ceiling of one of the Sanford Mills. In doing this work he stood for a considerable time upon a ladder with his shin pressed against the next rung above.
That night, from no other apparent cause, his leg, from the knee to the ankle, became painfully swollen. He was thus disabled for some weeks. He received medical treatment. An incision was made and pus removed. He has now recovered.
For purposes of this case it is unnecessary to discuss the precise medical diagnoses. It is sufficient to say that the commissioner was justified, by some evidence, in finding that the petitioner's disability was caused or aggravated by the chafing of his shin against the ladder rung.
The disability followed its causation in a few hours. Sudden does not mean instantaneous. Chafing may have been usual, foreseen and expected. Not however disabling injury by chafing.
Another test leads to the same conclusion. Words are to be "construed according to the common meaning of the language."
R. S. Chap. 1, Sec. 6, 25 R. C. L., 988.
We think that according to the common use of the word, the petitioner suffered an accident. It is so termed in the employers report.
In this respect, if not in others, the instant case is differentiated from the Ferris Case, 123 Me. 193.
In that case the petitioner while employed caught a cold which developed into pneumonia.
In common parlance neither pneumonia, nor a cold is spoken of as an injury by accident.
Appeal dismissed. Decree affirmed.