Rogers v. Ford Motor Co.

• Decision Date: 22 December 1938
• Docket Number: No. 95.,95.
• Citation: 287 Mich. 104,282 N.W. 918
• Parties: ROGERS v. FORD MOTOR CO.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

287 Mich. 104

282 N.W. 918

ROGERS

v.FORD MOTOR CO.

No. 95.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Dec. 22, 1938.

Appeal from Department of Labor and Industry.

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Orissa Rogers, claimant, for compensation for the death of Charles H. Rogers, employee, opposed by the Ford Motor Company, employer. From an award of compensation, the employer appeals.

Affirmed by divided court.

Argued before the Entire Bench.

E. C. Starkey and W. J. Jones, both of Dearborn, for appellant.

George H. Anderson, of Detroit, for appellee.

BUTZEL, Justice.

Decedent was a man 69 years of age and had been employed by defendant for 18 or 19 years prior to his death. He had had no recent illness other than indigestion and seemed as well as usual when he left home and went to work with a fellow employee on the night of March 10, 1937. After he was left at a gate by the fellow employee and entered the plant, he was not seen by any of those who testified at the hearing until after he was removed from the factory dead.

Defendant filed a report with the Department of Labor and Industry, using the form for compensable accidents, but attached thereto a letter denying that an accident had occurred. Under the description of how the accident occurred, defendant stated the employee ‘collapsed where he was standing in front of a body conveyor, where bodies are dried by infra red light.’ The report also gave the name of decedent's foreman and of the attending physician.

Decedent's body was taken to the county morgue where an autopsy showed that the immediate cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage following a fractured skull. It was also revealed that decedent had three serious heart ailments. The medical examiner's autopsy report described decedent's condition as follows:

‘One and one-half inch laceration scalp superficial, left occupital parietal region; aortitis; aortic stenosis; coronary sclerosis; old adhesions at apex of both lungs; acute passive congestion of both kidneys; moderate enlargement of the prostate gland; four and a half inch fracture stellate shaped in the left temporal bone.’

While there was testimony that decedent's heart ailments could at any time have caused a heart attack, with a consequent fall, it was also shown that decedent might have continued to live for some time without ill effects. There was no evidence that deceased had overexerted himself, or had eaten a heavy meal, or that any particular thing had happened to him which might bring on a heart attack.

The commission, on appeal by defendant from the award made by the deputy commissioner, found that an accident had occurred and awarded plaintiff $18 a week plus $200 for funeral expenses. Defendant appeals.

Defendant introduced no witnesses competent to testify and the facts hereinbefore detailed constitute the sum of the evidence before the commission. Defendant, although its report indicates that it had full information in regard to the incident, gave none whatsoever, nor any reason for its failure to do so. It is true that the burden of proving an accident rests on the one seeking the award and that an award favorable to the appellant must be based on established facts. However, in Wishcaless v. Hammond, Standish & Co., 201 Mich. 192, 166 N.W. 993, the court quoted from Grant v. Ry. Co., 1 B.W.C.C. 17, to the effect that [page 995]:

‘If in such a case facts are proved the natural and reasonable inference from which is that the accident happened while the deceased was engaged in his employment, I think it falls upon the employer, if he disputes the claim, to prove that the contrary was the case.’

We have frequently held that a finding that an accident occurred may be a reasonable and natural inference from a showing that the employee received a physical injury while at work. In the following cases the employee was found dead from traumatic injuries on the employers' premises and the award was sustained notwithstanding the fact that no one saw the accident. Wishcaless v. Hammond, Standish & Co., 201 Mich. 192, 166 N.W. 993;Meyers v. Michigan Central R. Co., 199 Mich. 134, 165 N.W. 703;Simpson v. Michigan Valve & Foundry Co., 260 Mich. 543, 245 N.W. 803. In Woodburn v. Oliver Machinery Co., 257 Mich. 109, 241 N.W. 159, the record, though not the opinion, discloses that the employee was 72 years of age, suffering from arterioscleosis and an anuerism of the Circle of Willis, one of the principal avenues of...