Giresi v. Okonite Co.

• Decision Date: 20 November 1946
• Parties: GIRESI v. OKONITE CO.
• Court: New Jersey Court of Common Pleas

49 A.2d 777

GIRESI

v.OKONITE CO.

Court of Common Pleas of New Jersey, Passaic County.

Nov. 20, 1946.

Appeal from Workmen's Compensation Bureau.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Joseph Giresi, compensation claimant, opposed by the Okonite Company, employer, to recover compensation for inguinal hernia. From a judgment of the Workmen's Compensation Bureau denying compensation, the claimant appeals.

Judgment affirmed.

E. Gustave Greenwald, of Passaic, for petitioner-appellant.

Wilbur A. Stevens, of Newark (Herbert A. McElroy, of Wyckoff, on the brief), for respondent-appellee.

DELANEY, Judge.

This is another of the multiplying cases of inguinal hernia resulting from accidental injury.

The matter was heard in the Workmen's Compensation Bureau on March 5, 1946, where, on motion of counsel for respondent-appellee (hereinafter called respondent), made immediately after petitioner-appellant (hereinafter called petitioner) had put in his proofs, the claim for compensation was denied and the petition dismissed. The application to dismiss was made on the grounds that petitioner had not had the attendance of a licensed physician within 24 hours after the occurrence of the hernia, and that he had failed to establish a descent of the hernia immediately following the cause. The lastnamed ground was untenable, but the first, in view of the pronouncement of the Supreme Court in Black v. DeVries, 133 N.J.L. 368, 44 A.2d 386 (since followed by the same court in Harrison v. Curtiss-Wright Corporation, 49 A.2d 496, not yet reported [in State Report]), unanswerable.

On the fact of the record before us, this is a genuine and meritorious instance of inguinal hernia resulting from an industrial accident. The evidence met and complied with four of the five tests prescribed by R.S. 34:15-12, subd. x, N.J.S.A., in such manner as to dispel all question of deception or imposture; and respondent's own physician, whose ‘attendance’ on the petitioner came three hours after the expiration of the statutory limit, found and reported him to be suffering from a hernia.

Meanwhile petitioner had ‘required’ (but only in the derivative and primary sense of the verb, that is ‘to seek,’ ‘to ask for’) the attendance of a physician. The mishap occurred at about 7 o'clock in the morning of July 11, 1944. From his home he telephoned to respondent's mill at about half past four in the afternoon of the same day, when he was informed that the doctor would not be...