Teague v. Graning Hardwood Mfg. Co., 41351

• Citation: 238 Miss. 48,117 So.2d 342
• Decision Date: 25 January 1960
• Docket Number: No. 41351,41351
• Parties: Samuel TEAGUE v. GRANING HARDWOOD MANUFACTURING COMPANY et al.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Mississippi

Page 342

117 So.2d 342

238 Miss. 48

Samuel TEAGUE v. GRANING HARDWOOD MANUFACTURING COMPANY et al.

No. 41351.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Jan. 25, 1960.

Forrest A. Johnson, Natchez, for appellant.

Laub, Adams, Forman & Truly, E. C. Ward, Natchez, for appellee.

LEE, Justice.

Samuel Teague, 71 years of age, was an employee of Graning Hardwood Manufacturing Company, engaged in the manufacture of chair stocks. On March 22, 1957, while performing the duties of his employment, he was struck in or on the left eye by a flying board about 1 5/8 inches thick and 13 inches long. The left lens of his glasses was broken and shattered into the eye. His foreman, Homer Lambert, the superintendent of that part of the mill, which worked 15 or 20 men, came up immediately and helped in removing glass from the eye, saying at the time that he would send the claimant to a doctor if it did not get all right. Nothing more was said, and Teague was not sent to a doctor.

The next day Teague asked Graning, the owner of the mill, if he could get a pair of glasses. The reply was, 'No, that if I had been wearing welding glasses he would have got me a pair. He said for me to go to Kress and get me a pair, and that's all he ever said.' The claimant worked regularly until May 6, 1957, when he was discharged.

About four days after the injury, claimant's eye kept bothering him, and he went to Dr. Coleman, who examined the eye, got some glass out of it, and said that the bone was fractured. About the same time, claimant procured Dr. Current, an eye doctor, to put an old lens in the frame and paid him $7 for that service.

On August 20, 1957, the claimant went to Dr. A. R. Perry, an eye specialist in Natchez, Mississippi, complaining of his eye. The doctor found a healed wound about 3/4 of an inch in length, above the lower edge of the left eyebrow, and discovered a swollen place, about the size of a pea, in the area of the wound, which was very tender. Dr. Perry sent the claimant to Dr. Coleman, who made X-ray pictures of the area, and it was disclosed therefrom that there had been an injury to the rim of the orbit-some bone damage--and there was a slight ptosis, that is, a drooping of the upper left eyelid. The doctor, from objective findings, could not account for the pain about which the claimant was complaining. He said that the eyelid did not droop enough to include the pupil, and that there was nothing wrong with the eye which would impair his ability to do the same work as he had done before the accident, insofar as his vision was concerned, if he was properly fitted with glasses. There was some hint of a traumatic neurosis as a possibility.

The attorney-referee denied compensation, but ordered reimbursement for the repair of the glasses and payment for Dr. Perry's services. On appeal, the commission, after deleting the slight award by the attorney-referee, in all other respects affirmed the same. The circuit court affirmed the order of the commission.

Regardless of whether the claimant was discommoded or suffered as he was doing his work, the fact remains that he actually worked from the date of his injury, namely, March 22, 1957, until his discharge on May 6 thereafter, and during the period, was also paid for overtime. Consequently, if he in fact had a disability, he did not let it prevent him from the discharge of his duties.

Appellees say that claimant is not entitled to medical payments or reimbursement for $7 paid to Dr. Current for replacing the left lens of his glasses because he failed to give notice as required by Section 6998-18, Code of 1942, Rec.

Graning admitted that no notice had been posted on the premises, designating a representative to whom notice of injury should be given. When this is not done, then,...