Southern Can Co. v. Sachs

• Decision Date: 13 January 1926
• Docket Number: 54.
• Citation: 131 A. 760,149 Md. 562
• Parties: SOUTHERN CAN CO. v. SACHS.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

131 A. 760

149 Md. 562

SOUTHERN CAN CO. v. SACHS.

No. 54.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

January 13, 1926

Appeal from Baltimore City Court; Duke Bond, Judge.

"To be offically reported."

Proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act by Mary Sachs claimant, for the death of her husband, John W. Sachs opposed by the Southern Can Company, employer and insurer. Claim disallowed by Industrial Accident Commission, and claimant appealed to the Baltimore City Court, where verdict was rendered for claimant. From that order employer appeals. Affirmed.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and PATTISON, URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT DIGGES, PARKE, and WALSH, JJ.

L Vernon Miller and George Weems Williams, both of Baltimore (Marbury, Gosnell & Williams, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellant.

William D. Roycroft and William D. Macmillan, both of Baltimore (Harold Tschudi, of Baltimore, on the brief), for appellee.

PATTISON J.

About 5:20 o'clock p. m. on the 26th day of December, 1924, John W. Sachs, subforeman or gang foreman of the Southern Can Company, was found unconscious at the foot of the stairway leading from the ground to the second floor of what is known as its No. 8 building on Wolfe street, Baltimore, Md. He was carried into the box factory, which is on the first floor of that building, and from there he was taken to the St. Joseph Hospital, where it was found he had sustained a fracture of the skull. An operation was performed, but he died on December 30th without regaining consciousness; death being due to hemorrhage of the brain.

A claim was filed with the State Industrial Accident Commission by Mrs. Mary Sachs, his widow. The employer, the Southern Can Company, being a self-insurer, asked for a hearing to determine, among other things, "whether or not the injuries sustained by the deceased were received in an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment." A hearing was granted, testimony was heard, and the commission passed its order disallowing the claim of the widow on the ground that the injuries were not received in an accident arising out of and in the course of the employment of the deceased. From this order an appeal was taken by the widow to the Baltimore city court, where the case was heard by a jury which rendered a verdict in favor of the claimant, reversing the order of the State Industrial Accident Commission. From that order the Southern Can Company has appealed to this court.

In the course of the trial three exceptions were taken; two to the court's rulings on the evidence, and one to its rulings on the prayers. The plaintiff offered one prayer, which was granted. The defendant offered in all nine prayers; the first four were designated as its A, B, C, and D prayers, while the others were numbered from 1 to 5, inclusive. Of the prayers offered by it, its A, B, C, D, and third prayers were rejected. Its first, fourth, and fifth were granted, while its second was granted as modified. The third exception was to the granting of the plaintiff's first prayer and to the rejection of the defendant's A, B, C, D, and third prayers and to the modification of its second prayer.

The chief reliance of the appellant in its effort to have the judgment appealed from reversed is upon the alleged erroneous rulings of the court in its refusal to grant the defendant's A, B, C, and D prayers, in which each asked for a directed verdict in favor of the defendant for the following reasons: (A) Because there was no evidence in the case legally sufficient to entitle the claimant to recover; (B) because there was no evidence legally sufficient to show that the death of the deceased was due to an accidental personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment; (C) because the uncontradicted evidence shows that the personal injury received by John W. Sachs did not arise out of and in the course of his employment; and (D) because the uncontradicted evidence shows that John W. Sachs left the first floor of the premises of the Southern Can Company and went to the second floor of said premises for the purpose of resting or loafing and was injured while returning from said second floor.

The record discloses that there were two toilets provided by the company for the use of its employees, one upon the first floor and the other upon the second floor. To reach the toilet on the second floor it was necessary to ascend an inclosed stairway built on the outside of the building. At the head of the stairway were two doors, one on the right and one on the left. One of these entered the toilet and the other a room on the second floor of the building, used for the storage of shooks, etc.

Fred Baier, an employee of the company, when produced as a witness by it, testified that he went to the toilet on the second floor and through the open door saw decedent sitting on some shooks with his head in his hands. The witness went over and said to him: "Come on, * * * get up; * * * it is time to go home," and Sachs replied, "All right, Fred." Baier then went down stairs to his work, and when asked where he went said:

"Well, I went in the door and then come out and went over in the other building, and when I went through I get about 15 feet from the door when I hear a noise, and I go out, and there is Mr. Sachs laying at the foot of the steps."

And when asked if he had fallen down the stairs, the witness said, "Yes," and further testified that Sachs was at the time bleeding. "How long after you saw him and spoke to him was it when you heard the thump" caused by his fall? "It might have been about seven minutes."

One Patrick Casey, an employee of the defendant, when produced by it, testified that on the afternoon of the accident he bought for Sachs two one-half pints of what is called "Jump Steady." The first of these he bought between 12 and half past 12, and the other between 4 and half past 4; that he and Sachs drank the liquor that he...