Case Name: Industrial Commission of Ohio v. McManigal
Court: Ohio Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Ohio
Decision Date: 1919-06-13
Citations: 30 Ohio C.A. 415
Docket Number: 
Parties: Industrial Commission of Ohio v. McManigal.
Judges: Vickery and Sayre, JJ., concur.
Reporter: Ohio Court of Appeals Reports
Volume: 30
Pages: 415–416

Head Matter:
OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE.
Court of Appeals for Cuyahoga County.
Industrial Commission of Ohio v. McManigal.
Decided, June 13, 1919.
Employee Breathes Poisonous Fumes While at Worh — Pneumonia Results with Fatal Results — Widow not Entitled to Compensation.
Where an employee in the course of his employment is compelled to breathe poisonous gases and as a result thereof develops pneumonia causing his death, such does not constitute an “occupational disease.”
Samuel Doerfler and B. A. Baslci/n, for plaintiff in error.
John A. Cline, contra.

Opinion:
Dunlap, J.
Heard on error.
Hugh McManigal, the plaintiff's decedent, was an electrical worker in the employ of the F. M. Grant Co. of Cleveland, and in February, 1917, with other workmen, was engaged in installing electric wires and conduits in a new factory building, partly completed, and owned by the Peerless Automobile Co. of Cleveland.
The building had a gabled roof and ceiling and was heated by open stoves or salamanders, between thirty and fifty in all, burning coke, and throwing off carbon-monoxide and carbon dioxide gases.
The electrical conduits were being attached to and along certain iron beams in the roof, and McManigal was required to work close to the ceiling, suspending on a temporary scaffold.
The air in the building was so contaminated with gas that workmen experienced therefrom a feeling of suffocation, headache, dizziness and a soreness in the chest and eyes, and were compelled to go outside for air about every half-hour. At the end of the day's labor workmen also experienced from these gases a listless feeling.
The evidence shows that McManigal, at his work on the beams near the ceiling, breathed in these gases for live days, and was caused considerable anoyance; likewise was compelled to frequently leave his woi'k and come down for fresh air. He was seen to cough frequently and hold his chest as though in pain.
On the evening of February 24, 1917, he was taken sick with, chills and fever, but arose the next morning and worked all that day, which was Sunday. On Sunday evening he again suffered from a fever, but nevertheless worked the following day, which was Monday. On Monday evening, being no better, and quite sick, his wife called a physician and he was found to be suffering from pneumonia, from which he died on March 4, 1917, leaving a widow and two children.
The F. M. Grant Co. was insured under the Workmen's Compensation Act, and McManigal's -widow made application to the Industrial Commission for compensation, basing her claim on the ground that Hugh McManigal's death was caused.by breathing in the gas fumes at the plant of the Peerless Automobile Co., which produced pneumonia, the immediate cause of his death.
The commission, however, denied her claim, and she thereupon filed a petition in the common pleas court, and the case proceeded to trial, with a verdict in her favor.
We think that the case as here stated does not show a case of occupational disease, but does show that the decedent came to his death by accidental causes, and upon the. authority of Industrial Commission v. Roth, 98 Ohio St., 34 (120 N. E., 172), the judgment in favor of plaintiff will be affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
Vickery and Sayre, JJ., concur.