Maryland Casualty Co. v. Industrial Accident Commission

THOMPSON, J.

This is a petition by Maryland Casualty Company, the insurer of A. Brizard, a corporation, to annul the award of the Industrial Accident Commission, rendered on rehearing, in favor of Harry Baldwin for permanent injury to his back sustained in the course of his employment.

This petitioner contends the record contains no evidence that the workman’s present disability resulted from the injury to his back, and that all of the medical experts agreed his present ailment is a manifestation of latent arthritis which was not caused by said injury.

Harry Baldwin was employed by A. Brizard, a corporation, as a sheet metal worker. The Maryland Casualty Company was the insurer. July 12, 1939, Baldwin, who was then forty-nine years of age, while engaged beneath the ground floor of a dwelling house at Loleta, in installing a furnace, twisted his back, resulting in sharp pain and an injury to the lower portion of his spine. He remained at home in Areata for about a week on account of the injury, reporting his condition to Doctor D. N. Mclnturff. The doctor examined him on July 13th, finding that he had “pain over the lumbosacral area, spasm particularly of the muscles of the left part of the back that extend down to the hip.” Baldwin returned to his work in about one week, doing “what I could,” but suffered from severe pain “between the hip and small of my back.” He visited the office of Doctor Mclnturff several times within a few weeks following the accident. The doctor assumed he might be afflicted with sciatica and took X-ray pictures of his spine and concluded “that his disability was from the original injury.” He “was getting progressively worse.” At the time of the original hearing in April, 1940, the doctor testified that Baldwin had not then “completely recovered.” When asked if the injury was permanent or temporary, he replied, “It is impossible to state. People in this age group don’t get better because of their

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age and the tendons become more fixed and tend to mobilize the spine. He should improve but I can’t say whether he ever will be completely all right.” He said the sciatica resulted from the injury to the hack. Regarding that conclusion this colloquy occurred:

“Q. . . . Your conclusion is from the whole thing, Doctor, that this sciatica was a result of the original injury which he gave you a history of when he first came to see you in July? A. Yes.”-