68 Ind. App. 466 | Ind. Ct. App. | 1918
This is an appeal from an award of the Industrial Board of Indiana in which it approved a claim filed by appellee for medical and hospital expenses incurred and paid by him seven months after the accident which resulted in his injury. The undisputed facts pertinent to the question involved, as disclosed by the stipulations of the parties and the findings of the board, are as follows: On August 31, 1916, appellee was in the employ of appellant Schumaker company, and, on that day, received a personal injury by an accident “arising out of and in the course of his employment, which at the time consisted apparently of a surface bruise on the left leg below the knee.” As a result of said injury, appellee was disabled for work for a period of one week, and was, at thé time, provided with a physician furnished by appellants. This physician attended appellee on August 31,1916, and on September 2,1916, and on said occasions treated the surface bruise on appellee’s left leg, which was then the only injury sus
We deem it unnecessary to enter into a lengthy discussion of - the question here presented or of the cases cited by appellants in support of their contention, since we are of the opinion that their position is sustained by the language of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Acts 1915 p. 392, §80201 et seq. Burns’ Supp. 1918. Section 25 of that act provides that: “During the thirty days after an injury the employer shall furnish or cause to be furnished free of charge to the injured employe, * * * an attending physician; * * * and in addition such surgical and hospital service and supplies as may be deemed necessary by said attending physician, or the Industrial Board.” It is further provided in the same section that: “If in an emergency (or) on account of the employer’s failure to provide the medical care for the first thirty days, as herein specified, or for other good reason, a physician other than that provided by the employer is called to treat the injured employe during the first thirty days, the reasonable cost of such service shall be paid by the employer subject to the approval of the Industrial Board.” (Our italics.)
It will be observed that this act does not provide for or require such emergency or other treatment by a physician as the development of an injury may from time to time make necessary, nor does it require or
In this connection, the case of In re McCaskey (1917), 65 Ind. App. 349, 117 N. E. 268, is referred to'by appellant, and, although it is not contended that said case is controlling in the present instance, the' suggestion is made that an erroneous rule or principle is announced therein and should be modified in this opinion, which involves the same principle. The contention is that in the McCaskey case this court erroneously held that under the Workmen’s Compensation Act an “injury” occurs only at the time of disability, whereas, in fact, a proper interpretation of said act makes the injury concurrent in point of time with the “accident” which causes it, and that any period of time which runs from the date of the injury must necessarily run from the date of the accident which causes that injury. Appellants’ statement of the holding 'in the McCaskey case is rather broad,
In the McCaskey case we directed attention to the fact that, in fixing the period during which the employer should furnish medical service for an injured-employe, the legislature has designated the thirty days fdllowing the injury rather than the thirty days following the accident, and we there said, at page 354 of the opinion: “The language of the statute, and justice and reason alike, authorize the conclusion that the services of an attending physician for which compensation was intended was a service to be rendered after there was an actual known physical injury, and hence where, as in this case, the undisputed facts show an accident to an employe in the presence of his employer, the immediate effects of which are not such as to indicate to either employer or employe, any disability within the meaning of the act in question or any injury requiring the services of an attending physician as provided in said act, and such physician is, at the time, neither asked for nor called by the employe, nor furnished by the employer, and it turns out later that, the injury resulting from such accident is more serious than was at first thought, and is in fact such as results in a disability of the employe within the meaning of the statute here involved, the thirty-day period during which the employer múst, under said §25 of this act, supra, furnish
The award of the Industrial Board is therefore reversed.
Note. — Reported in 120 N. E. 722.