Md. Cas. Co v. Campbell, (No. 16205.)

• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: JENKINS
• Citation: Md. Cas. Co v. Campbell, 129 S.E. 447, 34 Ga.App. 311 (Ga. App. 1925)
• Decision Date: 09 September 1925
• Docket Number: (No. 16205.)
• Parties: MARYLAND CASUALTY CO. v. CAMPBELL.

34 Ga.App. 311

129 S.E. 447

MARYLAND CASUALTY CO.

v.CAMPBELL.

(No. 16205.)

Court of Appeals of Georgia, Division No. 2.

Sept. 9, 1925.

(Syllabus by Editorial Staff.)

Error from Superior Court, Fulton County; John D. Humphries, Judge.

Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Cora Campbell, compensation claimant, for the death of her son. Opposed by the Maryland Casualty Company, the insurer. Compensation was awarded to claimant as dependent, and the insurer brings error. Judgment affirmed.

Underwood, Pomeroy & Haas, of Atlanta, for plaintiff in error.

E. O. McCord & Son, of Gadsden, Ala., and Dorsey, Brewster, Howell & Heyman, of Atlanta, for defendant in error.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court.

JENKINS, P. J. [1, 2] 1. The Georgia Workman's Compensation Act provides, where death follows an injury to an employee, that those entitled to compensation shall have been wholly or partly "dependent upon his earnings for support at the time of the injury, " and that "questions of dependency, in whole or in part, shall be determined in accordance with the facts as the facts may be at the time of the accident, * * * and no compensation shall be allowed, unless the dependency existed for a period of three months or more prior to the accident." Ga. Laws 1920 (§§ 38 [b, c] 39), pp. 188-190 (Park's Code Supp. 1922, § 3154 [ll, mm]). The question of dependency is one of fact, to be determined according to the facts and circumstances of each particular case, from the amounts, frequency, and continuity of actual contributions of cash or supplies, the needs of the claimant, and the legal or moral obligation of the employee. While, under the act, "dependency" must have actually existed "at the time of the accident" and also "for a period of three months or more prior to the accident, " physical contributions of cash or supplies are only evidential of such dependency, and the fact that such physical contributions were temporarily interrupted by unemployment or some cause independent of the will and desire of the employee, and were not made continuously for three months immediately preceding the injury, will not of itself necessarily negative dependency, where it otherwise appears from the evidence, that for several years before the employee left the home of his claimant mother, two months and nine days prior to the accident, he regularly and continuously contributed one-half of the amount necessary for her support, by buying her groceries, in the sum of $10 to $12.50 a week, that he left home for another city merely to obtain employment and money; that at...