80 Ind. App. 577 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1923
On February 4, 1922, appellee while in the employment of appellant as a worker in structural metal at an average weekly wage of $36 received an injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, by reason of which he was totally disabled. On March 18, 1922, appellant and appellee entered into a compensation agreement which was approved by, and became the award of, the Industrial Board. On July 14, 1922, appellant made application for a review on account of changed conditions. At the hearing, the evidence showed that appellee’s injuries' consisted of a partial deafness and a dizziness, and that at that time appellee was earning at employment, other than that of metal worker, the sum of $19.61 per week. The board found that since the award there had been a change in appellee’s condition, in that the injury had resulted in a permanent partial impairment, and that “by said permanent partial impairment,” appellee was “permanently impaired 50 per cent, as a man,” that is, he had “lost 50 per cent, of his ability to perform manual labor.” There was an award of 250 weeks’ compensation at $13.20 pér week. Appellant has assigned as error that the award is contrary to law.
Then follows the schedule, consisting of twelve clauses, designated respectively by letters of the alphabet from (a) to (1), inclusive. Clauses from (a) to (g) inclusive, fix definitely the compensation to be awarded for certain specified permanent physical injuries. Clause (h) is in the following language: “In all other cases of permanént partial impairment, compensation proportionate to the degree of such permanent partial impairment, in the discretion of the Industrial Board, not exceeding five hundred weeks.”
■Clause (i) provides a method for fixing the amount of compensation to be paid for permanent disfigurement, and clauses (j), (k) and (1), for temporary disability, whether total or partial. Clause (k) specifically provides: “For injuries causing temporary partial disability for work, compensation shall be paid to the injured employe * * * equal to 55% of the difference between his average weekly wages and the weekly wages at which he is actually employed after the injury, for a period not to exceed three hundred weeks.”
Appellee’s injury, partial deafness coupled with dizziness, although found by the board to have re-suited in a permanent partial impairment of fifty per cent, of appellee’s ability to perform manual
The case of Centlivre Beverage Co. v. Ross (1919), 71 Ind. App. 343, 125 N. E. 220, cited and relied on by appellant is readily distinguished from the case at bar. In that case the law governing compensation for injuries resulting in permanent partial disability, and which the court had under consideration, was the last clause of §31 of the original Workmen’s Compensation Act. Acts 1915 p. 392. In 1919 the legislature amended §31 of the original act in many particulars, one of the amendments being that clause (h) of the present statute was substituted for the old provision governing compensation for permanent partial disability. Under the last clause of §31 of the original act, provision for compensation was made “for all other
Appellant points out that the finding of the board was that appellee had suffered a fifty per cent, permanent partial impairment, and, upon the finding, made an award of $13.20 per week for 250 weeks, a total of $3,300, and suggests that the award is excessive, the amount being more than one-half of $5,000, the maximum which, under §40 of the Workmen’s Compensation Act (Acts 1915 p. 392, §8020l et seq., Burns’ Supp. 1921), could be awarded for a
The award is affirmed.