In re Bloom

• Decision Date: 14 January 1916
• Citation: 111 N.E. 45,222 Mass. 434
• Parties: In re BLOOM. In re CONTRACTORS' MUT. LIABILITY INS. CO.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

222 Mass. 434

111 N.E. 45

In re BLOOM.

In re CONTRACTORS' MUT. LIABILITY INS. CO.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Jan. 14, 1916.

Appeal from Superior Court, Suffolk County.

Proceeding by Fred Bloom, employé, against the Webb Pink Granite Company, employer, and the Contractors' Mutual Liability Insurance Company, insurer, for compensation for injury. From a decree for the employé, the insurer appeals. Affirmed.

J. C. Lynch, of Milford, for plaintiff.

N. F. Hesseltine and J. F. Scannell, both of Boston, for insurer.

DE COURCY, J.

There was ample evidence to warrant the findings of the Industrial Accident Board that the personal injuries received by the employé Fred Bloom arose out of and in the course of his employment, and that he suffered total loss of vision in the left eye and total incapacity for work. Apparently it is not disputed that the compensation awarded was proper, if he is entitled to recover.

The Workmen's Compensation Act (St. 1911, c. 751, as amended by St. 1912, c. 172, and chapter 571) provides in part II, § 15:

‘No proceedings for compensation for an injury under this act shall be maintained unless a notice of the injury shall have been given to the association or subscriber as soon as practicable after the happening thereof, and unless the claim for compensation with respect to such injury shall have been made within six months after the occurrence of the same.’

As a written claim for compensation was duly filed on March 25, 1913, in accordance with section 23, the claim, as such, need not be further considered. The questions raised by the rulings requested by the insurer relate only to the notice of the injury.

By the provisions of the statute the notice of injury and the claim for compensation are two distinct requirements. The notice must be in writing, must state the time, place and cause of the injury, and must be served as provided in the act. See sections 16 to 18 inclusive. The Industrial Accident Board, in passing upon the insurer's third request for rulings, states in its ‘Findings and Decision’:

‘The claim for compensation filed by the employé is in fact a notice of injury and complies with the requirement of the statute, giving notice in writing of the occurrence of the injury, and stating ‘in ordinary language the time, place and cause.’'

Even if we assume, without so deciding, that a claim for compensation filed by an employé might in some instances be construed to fulfill the place of the notice under the statute, we are of opinion that in the case at bar it was given too late to comply with the requirement of section 15. It was filed at least four months after the injury; and if considered as a notice, it was not given ‘as soon as practicable after the happening thereof.’ See Leach v. Hickson, [1911] 4 B. W. C. C. 153; Birrell v. Holloway Bros., Ltd., 4 B. W. C. C. 239; Hunt v. Highley Mining Co., Ltd., [1914] W. C. & Inc. Rep. 406.

It is provided in section 18, however, that ‘want of notice shall not be a bar to proceedings under this act, if it be shown that the association, subscriber or agent had knowledge of the injury.’ The board has found that Bloom was injured on or about December 1, 1914, and on two other occasions. According to his own testimony, while engaged in the work of cutting stone, a piece of stone hit him in the left eye about December 1, 1914, he got a piece of steel in the same eye about January 1, 1915, and about the middle of January received another injury. After December 1st his vision began to fail, and later it failed so rapidly that about February 24, 1915, he was unable to continue at his work.

As to the employer's knowledge of the injury the board finds that the employé notified the foreman of the Webb Pink Granite Company, Mr. A. P. Hedberg, of the occurrence of the...