Simon v. H. J. Cathroe Company
| Decision Date | 05 May 1917 |
| Docket Number | 20016 |
| Citation | 162 N.W. 633,101 Neb. 211 |
| Parties | EDWARD L. SIMON, APPELLANT, v. H. J. CATHROE COMPANY ET AL., APPLLEES |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the district court for Lancaster county: P. JAMES COSGRAVE, JUDGE. Affirmed as modified.
AFFIRMED.
R. J Greene, for appellant.
Mahoney & Kennedy, Strode & Beghtol and Guy C. Kiddoo, contra.
Action under employers' liability act, sections 3642-3696, Rev St. 1913. H. J. Cathroe Company was the employer and the London Guaranty & Accident Company are insurers of its liability.
On January 15, 1915, plaintiff was a bricklayer engaged in laying brick in the lower portion of a stormwater sewer. A workman whose duty it was to lower brick in an iron basket managed the same so negligently that a brick or the corner of the basket struck the plaintiff on the head, causing a wound from which he bled quite freely, and was obliged to stop working. The wound healed in a week or two, but plaintiff was not able to return to the job, although he afterwards worked for about a week for other parties. A few months afterwards he began to act peculiarly, complained of severe pains in his head, was unable to sleep, assaulted a married son with whom he he had previously been upon good terms, threatened to kill himself and his children, and in other manners manifested a deranged intellect. He consulted a physician and surgeon in April or May of the year following the accident, who told him that he might have a clot of blood upon the brain. He was afterwards, on the complaint of his son, found to be insane by an insanity commission, and confined in the state hospital for the insane at Lincoln. About September 1, 1916, his skull was trephined and a portion of the cranium about three inches square removed, when a blood clot was found on the brain about the size of an olive. This was removed by the surgeon. Plaintiff recovered from the operation, except for a slight paralysis from which he had not fully recovered at the time of the trial, and which the surgeon testified might continue for a year thereafter or more. It seems clear that the injury caused an effusion of blood which affected to a greater or less extent the plaintiff's mental faculties, and, while he only displayed a tendency to violence occasionally, he suffered from nervousness and sleeplessness and lack of co-ordination of ideas to a greater or less extent until the removal of the blood clot. The cause was tried to the court, which found generally in favor of the plaintiff against the defendant Cathroe Company, that plaintiff was mentally incompetent after the accident until about the 12th day of September, 1916, when he was discharged from the state hospital for the insane at Lincoln; that up to the present time his disability has been total, but that he is recovering, and that it is impossible to determine beyond six months the length of time during which he will be partially disabled; that the occupation of such petitioner was seasonal; and that the plaintiff ought to recover from the defendant Cathroe Company for a total disability for a period of 72 weeks at $ 10 a week in the gross sum of $ 720, and for partial disability at $ 5 a week for six months in the future. No allowance was made for medical or hospital services. The case against the London Guaranty & Accident Company was dismissed.
Plaintiff complains of the refusal to allow reasonable medical and hospital expenses, and of the findings that the occupation of plaintiff was seasonal, and that the disability of plaintiff would continue only for six months following the trial. As to the first point: The allowance was evidently refused because no medical expenses were incurred "during the first twenty-one days after disability begins." Section 3661. Even if we should consider that the disability for which medical aid was needed did not begin until the trouble was diagnosed as a blood clot, it was about six months afterwards before the aid of the surgeon was again sought and the operation performed. The disability, except for two weeks that he was able to work, extended to the time of the trial, which took place 102 weeks after the injury and hence the recovery should have been for 100 weeks at $ 10 a week, or $ 1,000. Even if the occupation is seasonal, as the court held, the statute would not reduce the allowance to less than $ 10 a week...
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