Case Name: Before State Industrial Commission, Respondent. In the Matter of the Claim of Joseph Weber, Respondent, for Compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Law, v. George Haiss Manufacturing Company, Employer, and American Mutual Liability Insurance Company, Insurance Carrier, Appellants
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1920-03-03
Citations: 191 A.D. 12
Docket Number: 
Parties: Before State Industrial Commission, Respondent. In the Matter of the Claim of Joseph Weber, Respondent, for Compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Law, v. George Haiss Manufacturing Company, Employer, and American Mutual Liability Insurance Company, Insurance Carrier, Appellants.
Judges: 
Reporter: Appellate Division Reports
Volume: 191
Pages: 12–16

Head Matter:
Before State Industrial Commission, Respondent. In the Matter of the Claim of Joseph Weber, Respondent, for Compensation under the Workmen’s Compensation Law, v. George Haiss Manufacturing Company, Employer, and American Mutual Liability Insurance Company, Insurance Carrier, Appellants.
Third Department,
March 3, 1920.
Workmen’s Compensation Law — consequential results of accidental injury—“hysterical blindness” and loss of sight of left eye resulting from removal of right eye necessitated by injury thereto — section 10 and section 3, subdivision 7, construed.
Where in a proceeding under the Workmen’s Compensation Law it appears that simultaneously with the removal of the right eye of the claimant, necessitated by an injury thereto, the sight of the left eye became affected and is now almost wholly lost; that no injury has been done to the eye ball, the optic nerve or any physical thing constituting a part of the organ of sight, but that the claimant’s trouble is “ traumatic neurosis ” or “ hysterical blindness,” an award should be affirmed.
Section 10 of the Workmen’s Compensation Law, providing that “Every employer * * * shall pay or provide * * * compensation * * * for the disability or death of his employee resulting from an accidental personal injury,” and making the consequential results of an accidental injury compensable, is not limited by the provision of subdivision 7 of section 3, which merely makes certain that conditions consequent upon disease following accidental injury shall be regarded as themselves the consequence of such injury.
Woodwaed and Kilby, JJ., dissent, with opinion.
Appeal by the defendants, George Haiss Manufacturing Company and another, from an award of the State Industrial Commission, entered in the office of said Commission on or about the 16th day of June, 1919.
Jeremiah F. Connor, for the appellants.
Charles D. Newton, Attorney-General [E. C. Aiken, Deputy Attorney-General, of counsel], for the respondents.

Opinion:
H. T. Kellogg, J.:
The claimant sustained an injury to his right eye which made its removal by operation necessary. Simultaneously with the operation the sight of the left eye became affected, and is now almost wholly lost. No injury appears to have been done to the eyeball, the optic nerve, or any physical thing constituting a part of the organ of sight. Yet distinguished physicians are agreed that the claimant is not simulating blindness, and in fact does not see. Dr. Neustaedter, chief neurologist of Bellevue Hospital, who was paid for his services as a witness by the employer, stated: " He cannot see at all." He diagnosed the trouble as " traumatic neurosis " or " hysterical blindness," and said: " This psychic shock, the surgical operation which produced the shock, was the primary means of producing that hysterical blindness." It is not important that the claimant has an uninjured physical equipment with which he should but cannot see. After all a man sees with his brain, not with his eyeball or his optic nerve, and if an operation perforrhed upon an eye so affects the mind, the nerves, or even the imagination, that a man genuinely loses vision with his other eye, then the faculty of sight has been more directly attacked than when assailed through the mechanical contrivances by which it functions. The Workmen's Compensation Law in section 10 provides that " Every employer shall pay or provide .compensation for the disability or death of his employee resulting from an accidental personal injury." AH the consequential results of an accidental injury are thus made compensable. The operation of this section is not in the least limited by the provision of se'ction 3, subdivision 7, which merely makes certain that conditions consequent upon disease following accidental injury shall be regarded as themselves the consequence of such injury. This was perhaps a necessary provision for the reason that, strictly speaking, disease is never caused by injury, but is merely provided with opportunity thereby. If an injury requires an operation, and the operation deranges the mind or nerves, clearly disabilities resulting from the derangement result from the injury. In negligence cases involving railroad disasters nothing is more common than recoveries for nervous and hysterical disorders due to shock. If a neurosthenic condition consequent upon accidental injury is compensable, as it clearly is, then surely a disorder such as hysterical blindness, which forms a constituent part of that condition, must also be compensable. The award should be affirmed.
All concur, except Woodward, J., dissenting, with an opinion in which Kiley, J., concurs.