Marman v. Edtroit Edison Co.
| Decision Date | 02 July 1934 |
| Docket Number | No. 121.,121. |
| Citation | 255 N.W. 750,268 Mich. 166 |
| Parties | MARMAN et al. v. EDTROIT EDISON CO. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from Department of Labor and Industries.
Proceeding for compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Jolan Marman and Carl Marman, widow and minor son of Carl Marman, deceased employee, opposed by the Detroit Edison Company, employer. From an awarded of compensation by the Department of Labor and Industry, the employer appeals.
Award vacated.
Argued before the Entire Bench, except BUSHNELL and BUTZEL, JJ.Oxtoby, Robison & Hull, of Detroit, for appellant.
Levin, Levin & Dill, and Gloster, Giller & Briggs, all of Detroit, for appellees Jolan and Carl Marman.
This is an appeal from the finding of the Board of Labor and Industry that Carl Marman met with a personal injury, causing his death, while in the employ of defendant, and the question is whether the finding has supporting evidence.
The employee was found dead. An autopsy disclosed a physical condition which, it is claimed, might have proved fatal if subjected to an electric shock or a fall. The board found that death was the result of an accident, but did not designate the nature of the accident. The statute, Comp. Laws 1929, § 8417, provides compensation for a personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment. Personal injury implies something more than changes in the human system incident to the general process of nature or existing disease or weakened physical condition. The term, as employed in the Compensation Act, contemplates some intervention which either produces a direct injury or so operates upon an existing physical condition as to cause an injurious result, reasonable traceable thereto.
The employee had status lymphaticus. The medical witness disagreed upon whether such a physical condition of an adult, without a precipitating cause, might result in sudden death, and therefore we must leave that subject amidst the uncertainty evidently existing among members of the medical profession. We know, however, that the cause of his death was status lumphaticus.
Was fatality precipitated by a fall or an electric shock? The burden was on plaintiffs to show that it was. The employee was engaged in dusting neutral electrical appliances. He had an air hose to blow dust, and a four-foot step ladder with which to reach the tops of appliances, and was furnished with rubber gloves. He was found lying on the floor and without the gloves on his hands. The electric current was cut off by an open wall switch.
Two theories were advanced; one that he may have fallen from the step ladder, and the other that he may have reached over and outside the ambit of his work and touched the clips of the...
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