Steed v. Mount Pleasant Seafood Co.
| Decision Date | 07 April 1960 |
| Docket Number | No. 17640,17640 |
| Citation | 236 S.C. 253,113 S.E.2d 827 |
| Parties | Ernest STEED et al., Respondents, v. MOUNT PLEASANT SEAFOOD COMPANY and Boston Insurance Company, Appellants. |
| Court | South Carolina Supreme Court |
J. Preston Warren, Charleston, for appellants.
Samuel I. Feldman, Steinberg, Levkoff & Spitz, Charleston, for respondents.
This is a workmen's compensation case wherein the employer and its insurance carrier are appealing from an Order of the Court of Common Pleas for Charleston County sustaining an Award of the South Carolina Industrial Commission.
Determination of whether there is competent evidence to support the findings of the Industrial Commission will dispose of the matter before us.
One W. D. Toler, d/b/a Mount Pleasant Seafood Company, owns and operates a dock and seafood packing plant on Shem Creek in Christ Church Parish, Charleston County. In connection with this business, he contracts with certain shrimp trawlers to deliver shrimp to his dock where they are unloaded and processed in the adjoining packing shed by being washed, headed, and graded. The trawlers upon arrival in the evening tie up to his dock and remain so for the night.
Ernest Steed, a colored boy approximately 15 years of age, was employed by Toler as a clean-up boy. Two other boys, George Douglas Smith, 14, and his brother, James Smith, 18, were also employed in the same capacity, their duties being to clean up the dock and and packing shed after each trawler had been unloaded and to clean the grading machine after the shrimp had been graded, such duties to continue until the processing of the shrimp and the cleaning had been completed. The various trawlers would arrive at different times, and, frequently, lull periods would result when the processing of one load and the cleaning would be completed before the arrival of another trawler. During one of such periods, at approximately 7:30 P.M., July 29, 1958, immediately after the dock which extends over Shem Creek had been washed, the Smith boys went swimming, leaving the deceased, Ernest Steed, standing near the edge of the dock watching. All three had been wearing swimming trunks and rubber boots while washing the dock with a hose connected to a sea pump but had removed their boots upon completion of their task.
While the Smith brothers were yet in the water, their attention was drawn to a heavy splash caused by Steed diving or falling into the water. One of the boys, George Douglas Smith, managed to get him by the hand by was unable to save him as he made no effort to swim causing both to be carried to the bottom of the creek where Smith was forced to release his hold in order to save himself.
There is testimony to the effect that deceased could not swim and had borrowed a pair of swimming trunks from a boy working on a nearby boat for the purpose of washing his employer's dock and packing shed because the force of the water from the sea pump was such as to wet those who performed such work; that the deceased made no mention of going swimming to the Smith brothers and that nothing was said about going swimming when he borrowed the trunks; that he had a fear of drowning and had never before gone in the water on similar occasions. There is also testimony that the employer had knowledge of other employees going swimming during the lull periods and that while he had not expressly permitted it neither had he forbidden such practice.
There is some testimony contrary to some of that referred to above, this being to the effect that the deceased had stated that he...
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Bowen v. Chiquola Mfg. Co.
...of cases this court has laid down the rule of law recently so aptly put by Mr. Chief Justice Taylor in Steed et al. v. Mt. Pleasant Seafood Company, 236 S.C. 253, 113 S.E.2d 827, 828: 'that the Industrial Commission is the fact-finding body; and this Court and the Circuit Court both being a......
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Packer v. Corbett Canning Co.
...of St. Matthews, 232 S.C. 84, 101 S.E.2d 50; Foyler v. Abbott Motor Co., 236 S.C. 226, 113 S.E.2d 737. In Steed v. Mount Pleasant Seafood Company, 236 S.C. 253, 113 S.E.2d 827, 828, this Court 'It is hardly necessary to cite authority for the well established principle of law that the Indus......
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Walsh v. U.S. Rubber Co.
...the same witness, the findings of fact of the Industrial Commission, as triers of fact, are conclusive. Steed et al. v. Mount Pleasant Seafood Co. et al., 236 S.C. 253, 113 S.E.2d 827, and the cases therein We think the evidence in this case is conclusive that the respondent suffered 'a hea......
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Crosby v. Wal-Mart Store, Inc.
...tended to affirm an award of compensation, deferring to the fact finding discretion of the commission. See Steed v. Mount Pleasant Seafood Co., 236 S.C. 253, 113 S.E.2d 827 (1960) (noting unwitnessed deaths pose grave problems and the courts usually abide by the decision of the fact finding......