129 A. 668 | Md. | 1925
The appellees are the widow and children of Luther Royster, who fell from a pier and was drowned in Baltimore Harbor during the course of his employment as a stevedore foreman. Compensation under the Maryland law was awarded his dependents by the State Industrial Accident Commission. Its order was affirmed on appeal by the employer and insurer to the Superior Court of Baltimore City. The appeal to this Court presents for review the action of the court below in refusing an instruction which would have involved a reversal of the order awarding compensation.
The facts are undisputed. Royster was assisting on the pier in unloading ore from the hold of a steamer. The ore *445 was being hoisted in tubs by machinery and dumped into cars on the pier. A wire cable attached to a steel windlass on the bow of the vessel was used to draw the cars into position for receiving the ore. The operation of the cable having become impeded by a low post on the pier, Royster was in the act of properly adjusting the cable when it was suddenly drawn taut by the windlass and struck him below the knees. As he fell backwards from the blow he caught hold of the cable, but could not retain that support and dropped into the water.
The question to be decided is whether, in view of the nature of Royster's employment, and of the fact that he was drowned in navigable water into which he was thrown by an appliance operated from the vessel he was helping to unload, his death should be held to have resulted from a maritime accident. If it must be so regarded, the case is not within the jurisdiction of the State Industrial Accident Commission, or of the tribunals to which it has been appealed. Southern P. Co. v. Jensen,
In State Industrial Accident Commission v. Nordenholt Corp.,
The initial injury sustained by the husband and father of the appellees in this case was received on the land, while its fatal result occurred in the water into which he fell. If he had succeeded in preventing his fall from the pier, any physical injuries inflicted upon him by the blow from the cable would unquestionably be within the remedial provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act. The injuries being actually received on land, they would not acquire a distinctive maritime character merely because the cable which struck the plaintiff was moved by a windlass on the ship. If he had been hurt on the pier by falling over the cable, the fact that it was connected with the vessel would certainly not be sufficient to differentiate the case from the one we have cited, in which the falling of a stevedore on the dock, while handling *447 bags of cement as they were hoisted from the ship, was held not to be a maritime accident. The drowning of Royster was a consequence of the accident on the pier. The blow from the wire cable which caused him to fall into the water may have disabled him from swimming ashore or keeping afloat until he could be rescued. It was undoubtedly the efficient cause of the fatality. The decisive significance of the fact that the original injury occurred on the pier is emphasized by Mr. Justice McReynolds' reference, in Washington v. Dawson Co., supra, to the case ofState Industrial Commission v. Nordenholt Corp., supra, as one relating "to a claim based upon death which resulted from injuries received by the longshoreman while on the dock — a matter never within the admiralty jurisdiction."
In Lermond's case,
In Martin v. West.
The converse of the question in the present case is found in the case of The Strabo, cited in the last quotation. It was there held, as stated in the syllabus, that: "Where the libellant, a workman on a vessel lying at a dock, attempted to leave the ship by means of a ladder, by reason of the master's negligence not secured properly to the ship's rail, whereupon the ladder fell, and the libellant was thrown to the dock, and injured, it is inferable that the master's breach of duty took effect upon the libellant while he was upon the ship; and, although his physical injury was completed by his fall upon the dock, a court of admiralty has jurisdiction."
In Mangieri v. Stephens,
The injuries with which we are concerned in the present case had their inception on land, though the death caused by the accident resulted in the water, and, in our opinion, the land incidents of the unfortunate occurrence were of sufficient consequence to justify the conclusion that the case is properly cognizable under the Workmen's Compensation Act of Maryland, and that the application of the local statute "will not work material prejudice to the characteristic features of the general maritime law or interfere with the proper harmony and uniformity of that law, in its international and interstate relations." StateIndustrial Commission v. Nordenholt Corp., supra; Western FuelCo. v. Garcia,
Judgment affirmed, with costs.