82 Ga. App. 514 | Ga. Ct. App. | 1950
B. G. Benton filed his claim for compensation with the State Board of Workmen’s Compensation against the Shealy Lumber Company, a partnership composed of L. B. Shealy Sr., and L. B. Shealy Jr., for an alleged accidental injury to the middle finger of his left hand, which he contended, he received by sticking a splinter in said finger while engaged in firing a boiler for the Shealy Lumber Company at its sawmill in Ocilla, Georgia, on January 17, 1949. A hearing was had before a director of the Workmen’s Compensation Board, who made a finding and entered an award for compensation in favor of the claimant. On appeal the award of the single director was approved and affirmed by the full board and was then affirmed by the Superior Court of Irwin County. The Shealy Lumber Company filed its bill of exceptions and brought the case to this court.
The plaintiff in error contends that the alleged injury to the claimant’s finger, which resulted in the loss of his finger, did not arise out of and in the course of his employment, for the reason that it appears from the evidence that the claimant re
After reading and considering the evidence, we are of the opinion that the director was authorized to find therefrom that B. G. Benton sustained an accidental injury which arose out of and in the course of his employment. There was evidence to the effect that Benton was employed by the Shealy Lumber Company as night watchman at the sawmill during the month of January, 1949, and at the time of the alleged injury; that he went to work -at 5:30 p.m. and got off from work at 6 a.m. the following .morning and that he worked seven days a week, for which he was paid $30 per week; that his duties as such employee consisted of watching the mill at night and firing the boilers at the sawmill in the morning before he got off from work, and that on the morning of January 17, 1949, while firing one of the boilers, he stuck a splinter in the middle finger of his left hand, and the finger became infected within a few days and had to be amputated by Dr. Bowen in the hospital in Augusta where he had been sent by Dr. S. L. McElroy of Ocilla, who first treated the claimant’s injured finger. There was evidence as to the loss of time, the extent of the claimant’s disability from the injury, and the hospital and doctors’ bills as the result of said injury. It also appears from the record that the employer here had failed and refused to comply with the provisions of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, Code, §§ 114-601 et seq., with respect to carrying insurance or by qualifying as a self insurer with the board.
As to the contention of lack of notice of the injury to the employer, there was evidence to the effect that Benton, the claimant, on January 23, 1949, five days after the accident occurred on January 17th, reported the accident to Buster Brooks, the mill foreman of the Shealy Lumber Company, by showing Brooks his injured finger and telling him how the accident occurred; that his finger became infected from the injury and he had to quit work on this account on January 24, 1949, and went
The evidence, though conflicting, was sufficient to authorize the findings and award of the Workmen’s Compensation Board in favor of the claimant in this case; and it is well-settled law that findings of fact by the Workmen’s Compensation Board, if supported by any competent evidence, are conclusive, in the absence of fraud, and will not be set aside by the reviewing court. Code, § 114-710; Bituminous Casualty Corp. v. Jackson, 68 Ga. App. 447 (23 S. E. 2d, 191); Harper v. National Traffic Guard Co., 73 Ga. App. 385 (36 S. E. 2d, 842).
Judgment affirmed.