Harrison Sheet Steel Co. v. Industrial Commission

• Decision Date: 18 January 1950
• Docket Number: No. 31112,31112
• Citation: 90 N.E.2d 220,404 Ill. 557
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Parties: HARRISON SHEET STEEL CO. v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.

Page 220

90 N.E.2d 220

404 Ill. 557

HARRISON SHEET STEEL CO. v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al.

No. 31112.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Jan. 18, 1950.

Irving M. Greenfield, of Chicago, for plaintiff in error.

Samuel Schmetterer, of Chicago, for defendant in error.

WILSON, Justice.

John Abraham filed an application for adjustment of claim with the Industrial Commission alleging that he sustained an accidental injury to his left elbow on June 7, 1946, arising out of and in the course of his employment by the Harrison Sheet Steel Company. An arbitrator found that the injury was compensable and awarded compensation of $18 per week for a period of 5 weeks for temporary total incapacity. In addition, the arbitrator found that claimant, as the result of a compensable injury sustained on August 8, 1944, had suffered a five per cent permanent loss of use of his left arm and that, taking the prior injury and the injury of June 7, 1946, together, claimant now has a forty per cent permanent loss of use of his left arm. Consequenly, claimant was also awarded compensation loss of use of his left arm. Consequently, the further period of 78 3/4 weeks for thirty-five per cent permanent loss of use of his left arm arising out of the injury of June 7, 1946, computed according to the provisions of section 8(e)(17 1/2) of the Workmen's Compensation Act. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1949 chap. 48, par. 145(e)(17 1/2).) Upon review, the Industrial Commission adopted the findings of the arbitrator and affirmed the award. Thereafter, the circuit court of Cook County reversed and set aside the award of the Industrial Commission. We have allowed claimant's petition for a writ of error for a further review of the record.

The facts essential to a determination of the issues may be summarized, as follows: At the time of the accident, claimant had been in the employ of the steel company as a general factory worker for about two years and was then sixty years of age. The accident occurred on June 7, 1946, while claimant, at the direction of his foreman, was assisting another employee in moving several cabinets. One cabinet struck him in the left elbow and knocked him to the floor. Claimant suffered a laceration on the under side of his elbow, the cut being three inches in length and extending through the superficial and deep tissue into the bursa adjoining the bony prominence of the elbow, opening the bursa and causing the bursal fluid to escape. The employer took claimant to Dr. E. H. Anderson, who closed the wound with approximately fifteen sutures. Subsequently, Dr. Anderson administered thirty-five treatments before discharging claimant as a patient and directing him to return to work on August 17, 1946.

Claimant returned to work as directed. A few days later, he noticed a liquid discharge oozing from the wound. This time, the employer sent claimant to Dr. H. R. Weinzimmer, who found that the wound was inflamed. Dr. Weinzimmer treated claimant from August 23 to September 21, 1946.

The record further discloses that claimant had sustained a prior injury to his left elbow on August 8, 1944, while employed by another company and that, upon application for adjustment of claim, an arbitrator had awarded him compensation at the rate of $17.63 for a period of 11 1/4 weeks for a five per cent permanent loss of use of his left arm. While the petition for review was pending before the Industrial Commission, claimant and his former employer entered into an agreement to settle the claim for $150. Upon presentation of the settlement agreement to the Industrial Commission, it was approved and the pending proceeding was dismissed. The foregoing evidence was introduced by claimant. The employer sought to introduce the entire contents of the file in the prior proceeding, including the transcript of testimony and X-ray exhibits, but this evidence was excluded.

The only disputed fact at the hearing before the arbitrator was the nature of the injury of June 7, 1946, and the degree of permanent disability, if any. Claimant testified that, following the accident in 1944, his arm had improved and that he had no difficulty whatever with it. He further stated that, after the present accident, his left arm was stiff; that he could neither bend it fully nor straighten it out; that it is sore and painful when he tries to lift anything, and that he has a grinding sensation in the bones of the elbow joint.

Dr. George C. Coe, testifying for claimant, related that he examined claimant on February 3, 1947, and found that his left elbow was swollen, particularly under the bony prominence of the elbow, and that all movements of the arm, both actively (movement by the patient) and passively (movement by the doctor), were limited. According to Dr. Coe, his X-ray films revealed an area of calcification, or bony spur, adjacent to the head of the outer bone of the forearm, osteoporosis (porous condition of bone tissue) in the bones of the elbow joint, and a narrowing of the joint space between the bones of the upper and lower arm, indicative of an old fracture of the head of the outer bone of the forearm. Testifying as an expert witness, Dr. Coe stated that, in his opinion, with a reasonable degree of medical certainty, the second injury superimposed upon the first injured area initiated the symptoms complained of by claimant and confirmed by his own objective finding of loss of movement in the elbow; that both accidents are involved in the osteoporosis; that the widespread poractic changes could result from the second accident, and that the present condition of the elbow is permanent.

The three witnesses for the employer were Dr. Anderson, Dr. Weinzimmer, and Richard Snyder, treasurer of the company. Dr. Anderson, the first attending physician, testified that X rays taken at the time of the accident showed an old healed chip fracture of the head of the outer bone of the forearm, a spur formation and no evidence of recent osteoporosis. He stated that he had not examined claimant subsequent to August 17, 1946, when the wound had healed and was not infected, and that there was then no loss in passive motion in the elbow joint, although claimant did restrict active motion on account of pain which he, as a doctor, was at a loss to understand.

Dr. Weinzimmer testified that, on August 23, 1946, there was an inflammatory process surrounding the edges of the wound and that, about one month later, on testing for movement in the arm, he found there was some loss in complete extension and flexion, passively as well as actively, in the elbow of the left arm. The same restriction of movement was observed at a special examination conducted by him on May 15, 1947, at the request of the employer. X rays taken by Dr. Weinzimmer also revealed the old chip fracture of the outer bone of the forearm, a bony spur and osteoporosis. The doctor was unable to state whether the bony spur antedated the second injury, but added that the spur, with arthritis, could be one of the factors contributing to...