Spiegel's House Furnishing Co. v. Indus. Comm'n

• Decision Date: 18 June 1919
• Docket Number: No. 12503.,12503.
• Parties: SPIEGEL'S HOUSE FURNISHING CO. v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

288 Ill. 422

123 N.E. 606

SPIEGEL'S HOUSE FURNISHING CO.

v.INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.

No. 12503.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

June 18, 1919.

Error to Circuit Court, Cook County; Oscar M. Torrison, Judge.

Claim by Katherine Jarrett Cloyes, administratrix of the estate of Harry J. Cloyes, against the Spiegel's House Furnishing Company, employer, for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act for the death of her intestate. An award of the Industrial Commission was affirmed by the circuit court, and the employer brings error. Reversed and remanded.Frank M. Cox and Albert N. Powell, both of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Norman G. Collins, of Chicago, for defendants in error.

DUNCAN, J.

The circuit court of Cook county confirmed an award by the Industrial Commission under the Workmen's Compensation Act (Hurd's Rev. St. 1917, c. 48, §§ 126-152h), on the application of Katherine Jarrett Cloyes, administratrix of the estate of Harry J. Cloyes, deceased, and certified that the cause, in its opinion, is one to be reviewed by this court.

The evidence produced before the Industrial Commission was in substance the following: Harry J. Cloyes was a regular employé of Spiegel's House Furnishing Company. The last day he worked for his employer was Tuesday, June 20, 1916. The next day he was not feeling well, and remained at his home and took medicine for a cold. He had fever, his temperature being about 100 degrees, and it so continued until Thursday, when a physician was called for the first time. The physician thought probably that he had ‘grippe,’ but called again on Friday, when Cloyes showed him an abrasion on his arm, over which a scab had formed about the size of a nickel, and there was a slight redness of the skin around the scab. The doctor did not that day attribute the condition of his patient to the injury on his arm. On Saturday the doctor found the skin around the scab was much redder in appearance and that it had spread in every direction. He testified that it was apparent that the injury was caused by an external blow, and that the trouble was infection from the injury on the arm, and that the arm was swollen; that on Sunday the patient's condition was worse, and continued to grow worse until Monday, when he was sent to a hospital and an operation was performed on the same day; that he died two hours after the operation, and that his death was caused by septicemia, produced by infection of the wound.

No one saw Cloyes receive the injury, and he did not tell his employer or any of his fellow employés about receiving it. The only proof that the injury arose out of and in the course of his employment was (1) the testimony of his widow and of his physician that he told them he received his injury at his employer's store, while passing through a narrow aisle, while showing customers goods in plaintiff in error's store, and by striking his arm, just above the elbow, against the sharp corner of a dresser; and (2) the coroner's verdict reciting that Cloyes came to his death June 26, 1916, from septicemia, due to an infected wound of the right arm, received at Spiegel's House Furnishing Company while in the employ of said company as a salesman, by striking his arm against a dresser. Plaintiff in error objected to the evidence of the widow and the physician and the coroner's verdict as hearsay evidence and as incompetent.

Cloyes left surviving him as dependents a minor son and his widow. He and plaintiff in error were both operating under the Compensation Act, and his widow gave plaintiff in error notice in apt time that Cloyes claimed to be injured and the time and manner that he claimed to be injured.

The plaintiff in error offered the transcript of the testimony taken before the coroner's jury for the sole purpose of showing that the verdict was based on the same hearsay evidence of the same witnesses heard before the Industrial Commission, and on no other testimony. That evidence clearly proved its contention that it was hearsay testimony, and the same, in substance, as the evidence of the widow and the physician, which was objected to as hearsay and as incompetent.

The sole question raised in this case is whether or not there is any competent evidence in the record showing that the death of Cloyes was caused by an injury which arose out of and in the course of his employment. The oral testimony bearing upon that question, heard before the arbitrator, and the Industrial Commission over the plaintiff in error's objection, was hearsay and incompetent. That testimony consisted of statements of the witnesses of what the deceased told them about when, where, and how he received the injury, and what he was doing at that time. No one testified who had any knowledge of those facts, except from the statements made to them by the deceased. Declarations made by one injured, to his attending physician, are admissible when they relate to the part of his body injured, his suffering, symptoms, and the like, but not if they relate to the cause of the injury. This rule is more rigorously enforced when applied to lay witnesses. Chicago & Alton Railroad Co. v. Industrial Board, 274 Ill. 336, 113 N. E. 629.

If the coroner's verdict in this case is held to be competent evidence, it is as clear as any proposition can well be made that plaintiff in error is to be held liable upon the declarations of Cloyes, now deceased, made at a time when he was a real party in interest and in his own interest, and without the sanction of an oath, and under circumstances that the declarations could not possibly be met or refuted by plaintiff in error by other evidence, or even by the right of cross-examination. This is so because the circuit court and this court, under our Compensation Act, can only pass upon questions of law, and cannot reverse the order of the Industrial Commission for insufficiency of the evidence, unless we can say that there is no competent evidence in the record tending to support such order. It is equally clear that there was no competent evidence before the coroner's jury or the Industrial Commission showing or tending to show that the injury to the deceased arose out of and in the course of his employment, unless we hold that the unsupported verdict of the coroner's jury is competent evidence for such purpose. Plaintiff in error was not a party to the proceedings before the coroner's jury, was not present and had no right to be present or represented in that proceeding, had no choice or right of choice in the selection of the jury, did not cross-examine and had no right to cross-examine the witnesses before that jury, or to contradict the evidence tending to prove the liability against it, which it is claimed the verdict of that jury now establishes. To hold that that verdict has that effect is to condemn plaintiff in error without a hearing and to violate the most elementary and sacred rules for the administration of justice between private individuals guaranteed by our laws and our Constitutions, both state and national.

The injustice and the out-and-out viciousness of such a holding will more strikingly appear to all minds, if we but consider that we may at any time have another state of facts in a case that would defeat the rights of the widow and children of the deceased injured employé by a similar holding. Let us suppose that the deceased party was killed outright by revolving machinery while at work at his employment, and was never able to state how the injury occurred; that the superintendent of the employer and one other fellow employé were the only eyewitnesses to the injury; that the superintendent made declarations of the facts that showed deceased was not injured while working at his employment, or by reason of such employment, and died before he could testify; that a coroner's jury was impaneled, and the declarations of the deceased superintendent were put in evidence before the jury by some attorney representing the employer, and that the widow and children's interests were not there represented, and that the fellow employé did not testify before the coroner's jury, and that the coroner's jury returned a verdict that deceased was killed by some other agency not connected with his employment, and completely exempted the employer from all blame or connection with the death of the employé. We can readily understand that, if the verdict of the coroner's jury furnishes such convincing proof of the facts therein found as is evinced by this record, the widow and children in the case just supposed might be defeated in the contest before the Industrial Commission by the introduction of the coroner's verdict, although the fellow employé might appear and testify, and particularly if the employer was able to offer the testimony of several witnesses whose testimony tended strongly to impeach his evidence. On a review of such a case, this court and the circuit court would be powerless, under the law, to weigh the evidence and to pass on its weight. It is apparent that the result of holding a coroner's verdict competent evidence in such a case will result in substituting coroner's verdicts and holdings that the injury to the deceased employé arose out of and in the course of his employment for those of the Industrial Commission, and in direct contravention of the very spirit and express provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act.

The foregoing conclusions cast no reflection upon the coroner or his juries. They are not supposed to be men educated in the law. They do their duty as they understand it. The chief blame for such results cannot be placed on the Industrial Commission. Such results have been made possible by the previous holdings of this court, in many cases of various character, that the verdict of a coroner's jury is admissible in such cases between private citizens as prima facie evidence to establish any fact or facts which our statute requires such juries to find when impaneled...