Case Name: Before State Industrial Commission, Respondent. In the Matter of the Claim of Joseph P. Donovan, Respondent, for Compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Law, v. Alliance Electric Company, Employer, and Ætna Life Insurance Company, Insurance Carrier, Appellants
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1920-03-11
Citations: 191 A.D. 303
Docket Number: 
Parties: Before State Industrial Commission, Respondent. In the Matter of the Claim of Joseph P. Donovan, Respondent, for Compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Law, v. Alliance Electric Company, Employer, and Ætna Life Insurance Company, Insurance Carrier, Appellants.
Judges: 
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 191
Pages: 303–307

Head Matter:
Before State Industrial Commission, Respondent. In the Matter of the Claim of Joseph P. Donovan, Respondent, for Compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Law, v. Alliance Electric Company, Employer, and Ætna Life Insurance Company, Insurance Carrier, Appellants.
Third Department,
March 11, 1920.
Workmen’s Compensation Law — injury to head alleged to have caused “sleeping sickness” — no evidence to sustain award.
The claimant in the course of his employment hit his head against a desk and thereafter encephalitis, commonly known as “ sleeping sickness,” developed and it was found that this disease was “ caused by a fracture to the base of the skull ” sustained by the claimant when he hit his head. Held, that there was no evidence to sustain the finding that claimant’s skull was fractured or that his sickness was caused by the injury received and, therefore, the award should be reversed.
John M. Kellogg, P. J,, and Kiley, J., dissent, with opinion.
Appeal by the defendants, Alliance Electric Company and another, from a decision and award of the State Industrial Commission, entered in the office of said Commission on the 16th day of July, 1919.
James B. Henney [William H. Foster of counsel], for the appellants.
Charles D. Newton, Attorney-General [E. C. Aiken, Deputy Attorney-General, of counsel], for the respondents.

Opinion:
Cochrane, J.:
The claimant on December 29, 1918, in the course of his employment hit his head against a desk. He worked regularly thereafter until January 16, 1919. He is now suffering from encephalitis commonly known as " sleeping sickness." The Commission finds that this disease was " caused by a fracture to the base of the skull " sustained by him when he hit his head. There is no evidence of a fractured skull. The evidence is to the contrary. At one stage of the disease the physicians thought the symptoms indicated a fractured skull but subsequent developments caused them to change their opinion. It cannot be that a tentative diagnosis in a partially developed case subject to future developments and which is changed by the later history of the case has any probative force. At most a statement of a witness out of court inconsistent with his testimony discredits the witness but is never received as evidence of the fact contained in such inconsistent statement. No physician in this case has ever testified to a fractured skull and no physician connects the present disease with the blow to the head. The Commission in its effort to make such connection has based its finding on the erroneous hypothesis of a fractured skull of which there is no evidence.
I, therefore, think the award should be reversed and the matter remitted to the Commission.
All concur, except John M. Kellogg, P. J., dissenting, with an opinion in which Kiley, J., concurs.