Court Opinion

ID: 9740401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:34:39.005305+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:08.327683
License: Public Domain

Btjshnell, J,
Plaintiff Arthur Hardiman began to work for defendant General Motors Corporation in the Chevrolet Grey Iron Foundry Division, at Saginaw, on July 21,1927, and continued in that employment until he left in November, 1945, because of ill health.
He worked for 15 of these 18 years as a core maker, and at other times was engaged in shaking out and knocking clamps off the casting flasks. He was exposed to dust powder and sand during the course of his employment. Plaintiff testified that during the last 6 months of this period he reported to defendant’s first-aid department many times because of his shortness of breath, and on about 25 occasions was sent home.
In January of 1946 Hardiman moved to Detroit, where he worked as a chauffeur until about August of 1947. He was admitted to Fairview sanatorium on September 4, 1947, where he remained under treatment until April 17, 1948.
The physician who attended him at the sanatorium testified that chest X-rays showed that Hardiman *172had pneumoconiosis (silicosis) and active tuberculosis. He said that “Most silicotics are predisposed t'o tuberculosis, most of them die from tuberculosis.” Although the doctor could not tell which occurred first, the silicosis or tuberculosis, he stated that his “guess would be, my opinion, I should say, would be the silicosis, it usually does, in the fact that lie had more silicosis than he had tuberculosis, the chances are that the silicosis preceded the tuberculosis,” but that there is no positivo way of determining it.
The medical witness called by the defendant had made an examination of Hardiman in 1938, and found no evidence of pneumoconiosis or silicosis at that time, but he stated that deposits of calcium observed in the lung tissues indicated a healed former childhood tuberculosis (inactive).
The commission affirmed the -deputy’s award of compensation at $21 per week from November 23, 1945, until further order, but not to exceed $2,600. It found that Hardiman contracted silicosis in the course of his employment, and reasoned from the medical testimony that a silicotic lung provides a fertile field for the activity of tubercular bacilli. It held that the apportionment provision of section 8 of part 7 of the workmen’s compensation act (CL. 1948, § 417.8 [Stat Ann 1950 Rev § 17.227]) is only applicable “where there are 2 separate and distinct diseases in no manner related to each other, both of which contribute to the disablement.” This section of the. act reads as follows:
“No compensation shall be payable for an occupational disease if the employee, at the time of entering into the employment of the employer by whom the compensation would otherwise be payable, or thereafter, wilfully and falsely represents in writing that he has not previously suffered from the disease which is the cause of the disability or death. Where-*173an occupational disease is aggravated by any other disease or infirmity, not itself compensable, or where disability or death from any other cause, not itself compensable, is aggravated, prolonged, accelerated, or in anywise contributed to by an occupational disease, the compensation payable shall be such proportion only of the compensation that would be payable if the occupational disease were the sole cause of the disability or death as such occupational disease, as a causative factor, bearing to all the causes of such disability or death, such reduction in compensation to be effected by reducing the number of weekly payments or the amounts of such payments, as under the circumstances of the particular ease may be for the best interests of the claimant or claimants.”
Should the commission have determined the proportion which silicosis bore to tuberculosis as a causative factor of plaintiff’s disability?
Defendant cites in this connection Kail v. Field Pontiac-Cadillac Co., 296 Mich 658, and Coombs v. Kirsch Co., 301 Mich 1 (11 NCCA NS 510), both of which are distinguishable. on their facts from the present ease. In the former, a collapse followed exposure to carbon monoxide. Death was the result of pulmonary edema caused by cardiac failure, and the commission found the exposure was only a contributing factor.
In the latter case, Coombs suffered a hernia in the course of his employment, and he also had a recurrence of Malta (undulant) fever. All the experts agreed that the hernia and Malta fever were entirely independent of each other as to manner in which they were contracted or occasioned and as to their effect on each other. But the disability resulted solely from the hernia.
Here, the evidence supports the commission’s finding that there “is a direct causal relationship between the silicosis a,nd the tuberculosis,” and that *174Hardiman “is totally disabled from silicosis complicated by tuberculosis.” Under this situation the provisions of section 8 of part 7 are not applicable.
Defendant argues here on certiorari that, since plaintiff was able to earn wages as a chauffeur from January 6, 1946, until August of 1947, the compensation awarded should be reduced proportionately to conform to the reduction in his earning capacity.
Under the finding made by the commission that Hardiman “worked as a chauffeur in Detroit during part of 1946 and part of 1947,” it was the duty of the commission, under section 3 of part 7 (CL 1948, § 417.3 [Stat Ann 1950 Rev § 17.222]) to determine the proportionate reduction in Hardiman’s earning capacity, if any, during that period.
The award is vacated and the cause is remanded for the entry of a proper award. Each party having prevailed, but in part only, no costs will be allowed.
Reid, J., concurred with Bushnell, J.