In re Rozek

• Decision Date: 01 April 1936
• Citation: 200 N.E. 903,294 Mass. 205
• Parties: ROZEK'S CASE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

294 Mass. 205

200 N.E. 903

ROZEK'S CASE.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

April 1, 1936.

Proceeding to recover compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act for the death of Joseph Rozek, employee, opposed by the Slater Company, Inc., employer, and the American Mutual Liability Insurance Company, insurer. From a decree dismissing the claim, claimant appeals.

Affirmed.

Appeal from Superior Court, Suffolk County; Greenhalge, judge.

Fusaro & Fusaro, of Worcester (N. Fusaro, of Worcester, on the brief), for claimant.

G. Gleason and W. G. Reed, both of Boston, for insurer.

FIELD, Justice.

This is a workmen's compensation case (G.L.[Ter.Ed.] c. 152) in which the widow of a deceased employee claims compensation for the death of her husband. From a decree of the superior court dismissing the claim the claimant appealed.

The decree dismissing the claim was right. Perangelo's Case, 277 Mass. 59, 177 N.E. 892. A decree could not have been entered ordering payment of compensation to the claimant unless such a decree was required as matter of law by findings of fact of the Industrial Accident Board warranted by the evidence. Section 11; Lopes' Case, 277 Mass. 581, 585, 179 N.E. 343.

The issue in controversy before the Industrial Accident Board was ‘whether the employee's death was causally related to a personal injury arising out of his employment.’ The reviewing board affirmed and adopted the findings and decision of the single member. The single member found that ‘on June 23, 1933, while pushing a hand truck the decedent fell and died almost immediately. At the time he fell he sustained a laceration upon the back of his head two to two and a half inches long.’ The single member also found and ruled that ‘on June 23, 1933 the employee sustained an injury, within the meaning of the Act, and that there was a causal relationship between the injury he sustained and his death,’ and ordered compensation paid to the claimant. The reviewing board denied requests of the insurer for findings of fact ‘excepting in so far as they may be consistent with and material to the findings and decision herein made and affirmed,’ and granted requests of the claimant for findings of fact ‘excepting in so far as they may be inconsistent with and not material to’ such findings and decision.

The governing statute provides for the payment of compensation to the widow of an employee for his death resulting from ‘a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment.’ Sections 26, 31. But a finding that an employee ‘sustained an injury, within the meaning of the Act, and that there was a causal relationship between the injury he sustained and his death,’ does not satisfy the statutory requirement of ‘findings of fact’ (sections 8, 10), at least unless the evidence reported is of such a character that ‘no reasonable inference could be drawn to the contrary.’ It ‘was the duty of the [Industrial Accident Board] to make such specific and definite findings upon the evidence reported as would enable this court to determine whether the general finding should stand.’ Mathewson's Case, 227 Mass. 470, 473, 474, 116 N.E. 831, 832. For reasons which will appear later the specific findings of the single member adopted by the reviewing board are insufficient to support a general finding for the claimant. And the disposition by the reviewing board of the requests for detailed findings leaves in some obscurity the further findings of the board.

However, laying at one side the question whether the findings of the reviewing board are too indecisive to require a decree in favor of the claimant, we place our decision on the broader ground that the evidence in its aspect most favorable to the claimant did not...