Grant v. Metro. Ice Co.

• Decision Date: 01 February 1932
• Docket Number: No. 32.,32.
• Citation: 158 A. 431
• Parties: GRANT v. METROPOLITAN ICE CO.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

158 A. 431

GRANT

v. METROPOLITAN ICE CO.

No. 32.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Feb. 1, 1932.

Syllabus by the Court.

This court will only consider matters of proof when there is no evidence whatever to justify the finding of the Supreme Court; and, as there is ample evidence in the present case, to support the conclusion that the accident in question arose out of and in the course of the decedent's employment, and that his death occurred by reason of the tubercular condition being awakened and aggravated by the fall, the judgment will be affirmed.

Appeal from Supreme Court.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Law by Margaret Grant, claimant, for the death of her husband, opposed by Metropolitan Ice Company, employer. The Supreme Court (152 A. 924, 9 N. J. Misc. R. 202) affirmed a judgment of the county court sustaining an award made by the Workmen's Compensation Bureau, and the employer appeals. Affirmed.

Coult, Satz & Tomlinson, of Newark, for appellant.

Samuel Greenstone, of Jersey City, for respondent.

HETFIELD, J.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court, affirming a judgment of the Essex county court of common pleas, which sustained an award made by the Workmen's Compensation Bureau to the petitioner, Margaret Grant, widow of the decedent, John Grant, and to Dorothy Grant, a minor daughter of said deceased.

The facts, which can be reasonably inferred, from the proofs submitted, show that the decedent entered the employ of the appellant on March 30, 1925, in the capacity of night engineer, and on May 15th following, while engaged in the regular course of his employment, fell from a ladder, sustaining injuries to his back and chest, which aggravated a tubercular condition, causing tubercular meningitis, resulting in his death on December 10th of the same year.

The appellant contends that, because the Supreme Court in its opinion did not indicate that it had passed on the question of whether there was competent proof that the death of decedent was in fact the result of the injury sustained, said tribunal could not have considered or determined that branch of the case; and it is now argued that this fact has not been legally established. We think that the facts and circumstances, as presented by the record, are sufficient to justify the inference that, while the decedent had been suffering from tuberculosis prior to his entering the employ of the appellant, the disease was quiescent and inactive, and, by...