Crowley v. City of Lowell

• Decision Date: 04 March 1916
• Citation: Crowley v. City of Lowell, 223 Mass. 288, 111 N.E. 786 (Mass. 1916)
• Parties: CROWLEY v. CITY OF LOWELL.
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

223 Mass. 288

111 N.E. 786

CROWLEY

v.CITY OF LOWELL.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Middlesex.

March 4, 1916.

Appeal from Superior Court, Middlesex County.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act for compensation by Sarah A. Crowley, wife of the employé, against the City of Lowell, employer. From a decree of the superior court affirming the findings and decision of the Industrial Accident Board, the employer appeals. Affirmed.

J. Joseph Hennessy, of Lowell, for appellant.

John P. Farley and Edward J. Tierney, both of Lowell, for appellee.

BRALEY, J.

The city contends that no causal connection between his injuries and the general condition of paresis rendering the employé insane, and requiring his commitment to an asylum, is shown by the record and therefore the decree should be reversed. McNicol's Case, 215 Mass. 497, 102 N. E. 697. But the material evidence before the committee on arbitration submitted without the introduction of further testimony to the Industrial Accident Board upon review, warranted the findings, that the employé had ‘a pre-existing constitutional disease known as syphilis' which being dormant left his ability to perform the arduous work for which he was hired unimpaired, and that because of the nature of the accident arising out of and in the course of employment, his nervous system suffered a shock sufficiently severe to aggravate and accelerate this condition, until general paralysis or insanity resulted depriving him of all capacity for work in the future. The statute prescribes no standard of fitness to which the employé must conform, and compensation is not based on any implied warranty of perfect health, or immunity from latent and unknown tendencies to disease, which may develop into positive ailments, if incited to activity through any cause originating in the performance of the work for which he is hired. What the Legislature might have said is one thing, what it has said...