265 Mass. 12 | Mass. | 1928
This is an appeal by the insurer from a decree ordering compensation to the widow of Harry Atamian, in a stated sum per week, for four hundred weeks from May 20, 1927. The evidence justified the finding of the single member of the Industrial Accident Board that the deceased suffered from hernias which came as the result of the heavy work which he was doing for his employer, and that the work was the final and probably the sole proximate cause of the hernias; that he ceased work on or about May 20,
There was evidence to support the finding that the hernias arose out of and in the course of the employment, and it is not contended that the employee was not justified in undergoing the operation for the hernias; nor is it contended that the dependent Would not be entitled to compensation if death was the direct result of the operation for the hernias and not of any other condition. See Floccher’s Case, 221 Mass. 54, 55; Snooks’s Case, 264 Mass. 92.
The question to be decided is whether the board was justified in finding a causal connection between the injury and the death.
When an operation is proper treatment for curing or improving the condition of the employee, and the surgeon in performing the operation does only those things which are incident to such an operation in the practice of surgery, the dependents ought not to be deprived of compensation even if they are unable to prove whether the blood clot causing the death arose from the part of the operation repairing the hernias or from the part which was incidental to that operation. The requirement of such proof would be a refinement of reasoning which would put too great a burden upon the employee’s dependent for the practical administration of the workmen’s compensation act. It would tend to impede rather than promote the purpose of the statute. Upon the facts found the conclusion, that the causal connection between the injury and death was not broken by the intervention of an intermediate agency and that death resulted from an injury received in and arising out of the course of his employment, was justified. Sponatski’s Case, 220 Mass. 526,531. This we interpret the finding of the single member to mean. The fact that the employee complained of his appendix and expressed the wish that his appendix be removed in connection with the operation for hernia does not affect the claimant’s rights upon the facts found.
Decree affirmed.