Poccardi v. Ott
| Decision Date | 10 September 1918 |
| Citation | 82 W.Va. 497 |
| Court | West Virginia Supreme Court |
| Parties | Gaetano Poccardi, .Royal Consul, Etc. v. Lee Ott,Compensation Commissioner. |
1. Master and Servant-Workmen's Compensation Decisions Tie-viewable.
Where the proof offered by a claimant, in this case the widow of an employe killed in a coal mine, in support of her claim as a dependent for contribution out of the workmen's compensation fund is clear and uncontradicted, an adverse adjudication of her right thereto may be revised and the claim allowed upon appeal to this court. (p. 499).
2. Same Workmen's Compensation Act Evidence of Defendant.
Evidence sufficient to support a verdict rendered by a jury upon proof of a claim predicated upon dependency must be regarded as also sufficient to support a claim for compensation out of the workmen's compensation fund based upon the same ground, (p. 501).
This court upon appeal can consider only such proof as was before the compensation commissioner at the time he acted upon the application, and not that taken and filed by the claimant during the pendency in this court of an appeal from his order, (p. 501).
On Appeal from Order of State Compensation Commissioner.
Barbera Sehipani through Gaetano Poccardi, Royal Consul, presented to Lee Ott, State Compensation Commissioner, a claim for the death of her husband. Compensation refused, and Poccardi appeals.
Reversed:, and remanded with directions.
Joseph W. Henderson, for appellant.
E. T. England, Attorney General, and Frank Lively, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
In support of her claim for compensation for the death of her husband from an injury inflicted while he was engaged in the actual employment of the Davis Colliery Co. at Bower, Randolph County, July 19, 1915, Barbera Schipani through Gaetano Poccardi, Italian Royal Consul, resident at Philadelphia, presented to Hon. Lee Ott, state compensation commissioner, proof of her dependency in part upon the income from the labors of her husband at the time of his death, which proof the commissioner deeming insufficient to establish dependency rejected, and refused to allow her any compensation.
Only two questions arise or demand investigation. Logically the first is whether this court in the exercise of the jurisdiction conferred by §43, Ch. 9, Acts 1915, Ch. 15P, Code 1916, Supp. Hogg's Code 1918, must treat as final and conclusive the findings of the commissioner upon the question of the dependency of the claimant, or whether the court can review the findings, set them aside and allow the claim if we should find the rejected proof sufficient to show the dependency. The other is whether this court can read and consider proof supplemental and confirmatory of the original, and not before the commissioner nor read and considered, though indorsed by him as part of the record of the application after the case was brought here for review and while it was pending in this conrt.
Thongh not final and conclusive, as held in Poccardi v. State Compensation Commissioner, 79 W. Va. 684, the findings of the compensation commissioner upon the proof submitted to him to show dependency should be given the same force and effect as the finding of a judge or jury, and generally should not be set aside if supported by any evidence. In that event support by evidence dependency is like any other fact settled by the adjudication, unless the adjudication is apparently against the clear weight and preponderance of the evidence. But according to the same decision and as an inference from what has been said, where there is no such conflict, dependency is not merely a fact finally and conclusively determined by an adjudication either way, but is a question of law to be determined upon the pertinency and applicability of the proof, upon which the ruling was based, to the fact to be proved. To be in a position to demand full faith and credit, the conclusion must rest upon conflicting proof about which some doubt reasonably may exist. Can there be such doubt in this case as compels us to give the decision of the commissioner the character of finality in the sense that it can not be altered upon this review?
The deceased and the claimant bore to each other the relation of husband and wife at the date of his death, a relation which has existed since February 22, 1884. Though he came to the United States in 1913, she did not but remained and still...
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Hammons v. W. Va. Office of the Ins. Comm'r
...Compensation Comm'r, , 256 S.E.2d 1 (1979). State ex rel. Conley v. Pennybacker, 131 W.Va. 442, 48 S.E.2d 9 (1948) ; Poccardi v. Ott, 82 W.Va. 497, 96 S.E. 790 (1918).It cannot be disputed that the petitioners, all workers injured in the course of and resulting from employment, have a const......
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...and generous.... Strict rules are not to obtain to the detriment of a claimant in violation of these wholesome purposes. 82 W.Va. 497, 500-01, 96 S.E. 790, 791 (1918) (emphasis added.). The above passage from Poccardi represents the first comprehensive statement by the Court25 that the work......
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Thomas v. Pa. R. Co.
... ... In some other jurisdictions it has been regarded as unreasonable and unfair to permit the introduction of additional evidence on an appeal from the commission. Poccardi v. Ott, 82 W. Va. 497, 96 S. E. 790. And, in the exercise of the peculiar function committed to courts under the provision included in the Maryland act, that of determining in a proceeding in the nature of an appeal whether the commission has exceeded the powers granted it by the article, and ... ...
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Meadows v. Lewis
...Comm'r, W.Va., 256 S.E.2d 1 (1979). State ex rel. Conley v. Pennybacker, 131 W.Va. 442, 48 S.E.2d 9 (1948); Poccardi v. Ott, 82 W.Va. 497, 96 S.E. 790 (1918). It cannot be disputed that the petitioners, all workers injured in the course of and resulting from employment, have a constitutiona......