Case ID: mass_229/html/0599-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Coleman Walsh’s (dependent’s) Case.
    Suffolk.
    February 6, 1918.
    February  6, 1918.
    Present: Rugg, C. J., De Courcy, Crosby, Pierce, & Carroll, JJ.
    
      Workmen’s Compensation Act.
    
    In a claim under the workmen’s compensation act it was held that on the evidence reported a finding of the Industrial Accident Board, that the death of an employee from tuberculosis was not caused nor accelerated by an injury to his foot a year and five months earlier, was warranted.
    Appeal to the Superior Court under St. 1911, c. 751, Part III, § 11, as amended by St. 1912, c. 571, § 14, from a decision of the Industrial Accident Board refusing to award to Annie Walsh as the dependent widow of Coleman Walsh compensation for his death on March 10, 1917, alleged to have been caused by an injury received by him on October 5, 1915, when in the employ of the Columbia Steel Shafting Company, a corporation.
    The claim was heard by the Industrial Accident Board upon a report made by a member of the board which contained all the material evidence, and the board affirmed and adopted the findings and decision of this member of the board. The decision appealed from was as follows: "The evidence shows and the board find and decide that the employee’s death from tuberculosis, on March 10, 1917, had no causal relation to the personal injury received by him on October 5, 1915; therefore, the claim for compensation is dismissed. The claimant failed to sustain the burden of proving that the condition of tuberculosis was occasioned by or aggravated or accelerated by the injury to his foot; and the weight of the medical evidence leaves it as unlikely and improbable that the injury and the disease had any connection with each other.” The case was heard by Fox, J., who made a decree in accordance with the decision of the Industrial Accident Board, and the alleged dependent widow appealed.
    
      G. F. Tucker, (O. Gallagher with him,) for the dependent widow.
    
      
      H. S. Avery, for the insurer, submitted the case without argument or brief.
    
      
       This case is printed out of its chronological order merely by reason of a mistake in treating the date of the rescript as if it were March 6 instead of February 6. The opinion was not withdrawn by the court.
    
   By the Court.

The deceased employee sustained injury arising out of and in the course of his employment by a subscriber under the workmen's compensation act. That injury was a fracture of the os calcis and inflammation of the ankle joint. The decisive issue of fact at the hearing was, whether this injury to the employee had a direct causal connection with tuberculosis, of which he died about seventeen months later. The determination of that issue depended upon the weighing of evidence.' It need not be recited. A careful examination of the entire record shows that the decision of the single member of the Industrial Accident Board, and that of the board on appeal, was fully justified on the evidence.

Decree affirmed.