Voight v. Indus. Comm'n, 13720.
| Decision Date | 08 April 1921 |
| Docket Number | No. 13720.,13720. |
| Citation | 130 N.E. 470,297 Ill. 109 |
| Parties | VOIGHT v. INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION et al. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Error to Circuit Court, St. Clair County; George A. Crow, Judge.
Proceeding under the Workmen's Compensation Act by August Kleine, employee, to obtain compensation for personal injuries, opposed by C. Voight, the employer. Award of compensation was affirmed by the Circuit Court and the employer brings error.
Reversed in part, and judgment rendered.R. W. Ropiequet, of St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiff in error.
A. W. Kerr, of Chicago, and F. H. Kruger, of Belleville, for defendant in error.
This writ of error is prosecuted by leave of this court to review a judgment of the circuit court of St. Clair county affirming an order of the Industrial Commission of December 5, 1919, awarding to August Kleine, defendant in error, compensation for accidental injuries received while employed in the coal mine of C. Voight, plaintiff in error, doing business as the South Belleville Coal Company. The award was for $12 per week for 27 4/7 weeks for temporary total incapacity, and for the further sum of $6 per week for a period of 387 3/7 weeks for partial incapacity to work. The order recited that the $6 per week allowance was one-half the difference between what he earned before the injury and the amount he was able to earn in suitable employment since the injury. Plaintiff in error was credited by the order with $311.43 paid Kleine as compensation.
Defendant in error sustained his injury on October 10, 1918, by being caught under a cage operated by plaintiff in error. An X-ray picture taken the following day disclosed a fracture of a protuberance of one of his lumbar vertebrae, but according to the testimony of Dr. Twitchell there was no injury to the main body of the vertebra or of the spinal column. He had contusions of the lumbar muscles of the back and apparently suffered a good deal of pain for some time from such injury. Dr. Twitchell, who treated him for his injury, further testified that on April 1, 1919, defendant in error had been walking around for a good while; that he examined him at that time, and thought he was able to do light work, and so reported to plaintiff in error; that, basing his opinion upon his experience in the treatment of defendant in error and from such examination he did not think that his injury was permanent; and that he had no doubt that the fracture was entirely healed, and that the vertebra had assumed its normal strength and its normal condition. It was his opinion that the defendant in error was in as good condition to do work as he was before the accident.
Mrs. Louettie Fullmer, a chiropractor for more than 4 years and a graduate of the Palmer School of Chiropractics at Davenport, Iowa, and licensed as a chiropractor under the Drugless Healing Act of Illinois, testified, over the objection of the plaintiff in error, that chiropractors deal with posterior or lateral subluxations of the spine; that she examined the defendant in error, and found two vertebrae affected in the lower lumbar region of the spine, and a very prominent subluxation in the lower lumber region; that that kind of injury usually causes extreme pain in the back, and especially in the stooped posture; that this is due to the nerves being impinged by the two vertebrae being subluxated posteriorly, which squeezes or pinches the spinal nerve; that when she first treated Kleine for this condition she thought he could not do very much manual labor, and advised him not to do any; that later she told him that he could try to do some work, but not heavy work; and that in her opinion his decreased working efficiency for the purpose of doing manual labor amounted to at least 75 per cent.
The defendant in error testified that since the hearing before the arbitrator at Belleville, and just previous to the hearing before the Commission, he had been working at a light job in the City Foundry, at Belleville, for about 6 weeks and that he received $4 for 8 hours' work per day; that his work consisted of handling and carrying small pieces of iron from place to place in the foundry; that during that time he had been working 6 days a week in that foundry, and was still working there at the time of the trial. He also testified that he suffers pain in his back when he works, and also in his hips, where he was crushed by the cage, and that he works because necessity compels him to do so; the plaintiff in error having stopped paying him compensation April 15, 1919. It also appears by admissions in the record that the plaintiff in error did stop paying him compensation on said last date because he considered him able to work and able to earn as much wages as he did before his injury. At the hearing before the arbitrator, July 9, 1919, Kleine testified that since his injury, and before that hearing, he worked 5 days on the rock road in Belleville, shoveling dirt with a grading gang, and then gave it up, presumably because the work was too hard for him; that he worked for about 3 weeks at a factory where they make electric washing machines, sometimes working with the shipping clerk, loading machines and wringers in the cars, and sometimes shoveling dirt on the outside; that he was still working at that time at that business, receiving 32 1/2 cents per hour during a 9 1/2-hour workday, but that he was unable to work more than 4 days a week, because it hurt his back. This factory where he worked operated 6 days a week. He also testified at that hearing that his back had improved a little within the last 4 or 5 weeks previous to that time.
It is unquestioned in this case that defendant in error was entitled to recover compensation up to April 15, 1919, when plaintiff in error ceased to make payments to him. The first contention of plaintiff in error is that there is no competent evidence in this record to sustain the award for compensation payable after April 15, 1919. This contention is based upon his further contention that the commission erred in admitting the testimony of Dr. Fullmer as an expert witness, contending that she did not qualify as an expert. Any one who is shown...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
People v. 1945 North 31ST Street, Decatur
...reading does not render the sense dubious they should be read and interpreted as written in the statute." Voight v. Industrial Comm'n, 297 Ill. 109, 114, 130 N.E. 470 (1921). "`As a general rule, the use of the conjunctive, as in the word "and," indicates that the legislature intended for a......
-
County of Du Page v. Illinois Labor rel.
...accurate reading does not render the sense dubious they should be read and interpreted as written in the statute.' Voight v. Industrial Comm'n, 297 Ill. 109, 114 (1921). `"As a general rule, the use of the conjunctive, as in the word `and,' indicates that the legislature intended for all of......
-
People v. Heather M. (In re M.M. )
...reading does not render the sense dubious they should be read and interpreted as written in the statute.’ Voight v. Industrial Comm'n, 297 Ill. 109, 114, 130 N.E. 470 (1921)." People v. A Parcel of Property Commonly Known as 1945 North 31st Street, 217 Ill.2d 481, 500–01, 299 Ill.Dec. 196, ......
-
Coalition for Political Honesty v. State Bd. of Elections
...308, 311, 155 N.E.2d 9; People ex rel. Fix v. Trustees of Northwestern College, 322 Ill. 120, 124, 152 N.E. 555; Voight v. Industrial Com., 297 Ill. 109, 114, 130 N.E.2d 470. This is a difficult burden for one who says that language should not be given its common meaning, but it is proper i......