McCoy v. Mich. Screw Co.

• Citation: 147 N.W. 572,180 Mich. 454
• Decision Date: 01 June 1914
• Docket Number: No. 185.,185.
• Parties: McCOY v. MICHIGAN SCREW CO.
• Court: Supreme Court of Michigan

180 Mich. 454
147 N.W. 572

McCOY
v.
MICHIGAN SCREW CO.

No. 185.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

June 1, 1914.

Certiorari to Industrial Accident Board.

Claim by William McCoy against the Michigan Screw Company under the Workmen's Compensation Act for the loss of one eye. An award by an arbitration committee to the claimant was affirmed by the Industrial Accident Board, and the employer brings certiorari. Reversed.

Argued before McALVAY, C. J., and BROOKE, KUHN, STONE, OSTRANDER, BIRD, MOORE, and STEERE, JJ.

[147 N.W. 572]

Stevens T. Mason, of Detroit, for appellant.

Edmund C. Shields, of Lansing, for appellee.

KUHN, J.

The claimant, William McCoy, was employed by the contestant and appellant as an operator on a lathe machine. On February 1, 1913, several small pieces of steel from the machine on which he was working lodged in his eye. This, it is claimed, caused an irritation and caused him to rub his eye. At the time, claimant was being treated by Dr. A. M. Campbell for gonorrhea. On February 7th he went to Dr. Cochrane, who removed four pieces of steel from the eye. The next day the doctor removed another piece of steel and discovered that the eye

[147 N.W. 573]

had become infected with gonorrhea. He was then sent to a hospital and subsequently lost the sight of the eye. The Industrial Accident Board affirmed an award made claimant by an arbitration committee of $6.49 per week for 100 weeks.

[1] It is the claim of contestant and appellant that the loss of the eye was not the result of a personal injury arising out of and in the course of claimant's employment, but was the direct result of a disease unconnected in any way with his employment. At the hearing before the Industrial Accident Board, four physicians were sworn, who testified as to the effect upon the eye of gonorrheal infection.

Claimant contends that the germs would not have entered the eye had not the steel caused ‘(a) an inclination to rub-the inciting cause-(b) inflamed condition which made the eye susceptible to the entry of the germs, as in the case of blood poison and erysipelas.’

A careful reading of the testimony of the physicians shows that the infection can easily be caused to a normal eye by rubbing the eye with a hand infected with the gonorrheal germ. Dr. Bret Nottingham testified:

‘Mr. Mason: And will you say as an expert how gonorrhea can be communicated to the eye? Is it by germ or otherwise? A. Yes; it is a contagious disease of course, produced by this germ, and a person, in caring for...