259 N.W. 118 | Mich. | 1935
The city of Negaunee and its insurer, New Amsterdam Casualty Company, bring an appeal in the nature of certiorari from an award granted to Frank Cody by the department of labor and industry. Plaintiff claims that on March 25, 1932, when a fellow workman struck with an iron maul a pick which plaintiff was holding on frozen ground, a piece of metal lodged in his eye, and a cataract subsequently developed as a result of the injury. While we are much impressed with defendants' claim that the loss of vision in plaintiff's eye was not due to the alleged injury, we are bound by the finding of the commission as to the facts, even though we might have come to an entirely different conclusion.
The award must, however, be set aside, for reasons overlooked by the board. Negaunee, like many other cities confronted with the unemployment problem, gave applicants for relief an opportunity to work a limited number of days each month on a gravel pile. Plaintiff admits that he applied to the city authorities for help and that they put him to work instead. The city showed that the work was being carried on in the winter time for relief operations; that the cost of doing the work at a time of the year when the ground was frozen was double what it would have been under ordinary, favorable circumstances; that married men were given employment 12 days a month, and single men only six days; that only indigent men were employed in the work.
The case is very similar to, and is ruled by,Vaivida v. City of Grand Rapids,
The award is herewith vacated.
POTTER, C.J., and NELSON SHARPE, NORTH, FEAD, WIEST, BUSHNELL, and EDWARD M. SHARPE, JJ., concurred. *339