Case ID: ad_170/html/0868-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Woodward, J.:", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Before State Industrial Commission, Respondent. In the Matter of the Claim of Carmela Mazzarisi and Others, Claimants, Respondents, for Compensation to Themselves under the Workmen’s Compensation Law for the Death of Vito Mazzarisi, Deceased, v. Ward & Tully, Employer, and Contractors Mutual Insurance Corporation, Insurance Carrier, Appellants.
    Third Department,
    January 5, 1916.
    Workmen’s Compensation Law — injury to employee while assisting in driving sheeting — “ pile driving ” — inquiry as to cause of death.
    An employee, assisting in driving sheeting to be used in a jetty to extend into the ocean for the protection of baths on the water front, the sheeting being a form of piling, will be deemed to have been engaged in “pile driving” within the meaning of group 11 of section 2 of the Workmen’s Compensation Law.
    The fact that the employee, at the moment he met with the injury resulting in his death, may have been engaged in performing a physical act more approximately incident to the making of the sheeting than to the driving of it into the sand, does not require a reversal of an award.
    Where the inquiry by the Commission on the cause of the death of a decedent has been thorough and skillful, its award will not be vacated, although the injury would not have caused death but for antecedent conditions, and the injury may have been but one of the concurring causes set in motion thereby.
    
      Appeal by Ward & Tully and another from an award of the State Industrial Commission, made On the 14th day of July, 1915, awarding compensation to the respondents for the death of Vito Mazzarisi.
    
      Jeremiah J. Coughlan, for the appellants.
    
      Egburt E. Woodbury, Attorney-General [E. C. Aiken, Deputy Attorney-General, of counsel], and Jeremiah F. Connor, counsel to State Industrial Commission, for the respondents.
   Woodward, J.:

This court will not be warranted in disturbing the award made by the Commission. The evidence authorized the finding of the Commission that at the time Vito Mazzarisi received the injuries resulting in his death he “was working for his employer driving some piles on the beach at Coney Island and was assisting in driving sheeting.” This sheeting was to be used in a jetty to extend into the ocean for the protection of the municipal baths on the water front at Coney Island. In work of this character sheeting is a form of piling. (Volpe v. Cederstrand, 126 Minn. 355; 148 N. W. Rep. 119.) The Century Dictionary defines “sheeting” as follows: “ In hydraulic engineering, a lining of timber to a caisson or coffer dam formed of sheet piles or piles with planking between. Also, any form of sheet piling used to protect a river bank.”

The “ driving ” of “ sheeting ” was, indubitably, under the evidence and the authorities, the driving of “sheet piling,” and brought Mazzarisi’s employment within group 11 of the enumerated employments in section 2 of the Workmen’s Compensation Law (Consol. Laws, chap. 61; Laws of 1914, chap. 41), to wit, “pile driving.” The fact that the deceased may at the moment he met with injury have been engaged in performing a physical act more approximately incident to the making of this sheeting than to the driving of it down into the sand could not, had the same been found by the Commission or were the same required by the evidence, require reversal of the award.

The immediate cause of death was septicsema, which actually, naturally and apparently unavoidably ensued from the injuries to the abdomen and bladder occasioned by the decedent’s fall. (Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 3, subd. 7.) The Commission’s inquiry on this point was thorough and skillful; this court has no reason to challenge its conclusion. Doubtless there was a diseased condition before the injury; it may be that the injury would not have caused his death but for these antecedent conditions; the injury may have been but one of concurring causes set in motion by the injury. None of these facts, if found or clear from the evidence, would warrant vacating the present award.

The award should be affirmed.

Award unanimously affirmed; Cochrane, J., not sitting.