delivered the opinion of the court:
Thе two appeals consolidated here concern an award under the Wоrkmen’s Compensation Act to Joseph Downey for an employment-related injury. The arbitrator originally denied compensation; that decision was affirmed by the Industrial Commision and later reversed by the circuit court of Winnebago County as against the manifest weight of the evidence. Pursuant to a remanding order, the Commission then awarded cоmpensation which was affirmed on appeal to the circuit court. Both actions of the circuit court are challenged here in separate appeals by J. I. Case Company, the employer.
The first appeal, from the circuit court order remanding the case to the Commission to fix an award, is improper and must be dismissed. The remanding order was interlocutory and is not in itself appealable. (Joyce Bros. Storage and Van Co. v. Industrial Com.,
No evidence was presented in this case subsequent to the arbitration hearing. A careful examination of that record indicates that the arbitrator’s deсision, affirmed by the Commission, was clearly not contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. Claimant testified that he had never had any trouble with his back prior to the accident at work. The testimony of the company nurse, however, supported by the records which she kept in her daily routine, clearly contradicted the claimant on this material fact. She recalled that 2^ months before the accident, claimant came to her with a complaint about his knee, which he had cut in a fall while hunting. When she asked if anything else was hurt, he said his back and hip were hurt in the fall and were painful. In additiоn to this evidence, from which the arbitrator could reasonably have concluded that claimant’s ill-being stemmed from a prior non-work-related accident, there wаs evidence from which it might have been concluded that the ill-being arose from somе later cause. In the year and one-half after the accident at work, clаimant made only two visits to a doctor about his back — both times to Dr. Eugene T. Leonard, pursuant to the employer’s directives. At the second examination, three months aftеr the first and nearly five months after the accident, Dr. Leonard noted that claimant’s subjective complaints had changed, and had become possibly indicative of an early herniated disc syndrome “completely unrelated” to the first examination. There were also conflicts in testimony relating to the circumstances of the accident, as well as a question whether claimant’s failure to return to his job on subsequent days was due to a work-related disability or his choice to work elsewhere.
In short, it is clear to us that the original resolution of these disputes by the arbitrator and Commission was not contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence and that the circuit court errеd in initially remanding the case. (Mechanics Universal Joint Div., Borg-Warner Corp. v. Industrial Com.,
No. 42071, appeal dismissed; No. 42072, reversed and remanded, with directions.