30 A.2d 626 | Pa. Super. Ct. | 1942
Argued December 14, 1942. Appeal by claimant from decision of Workmen's Compensation Board refusing award.
Appeal dismissed and judgment entered for defendant, opinion by KUN, J. Claimant appealed. In this workman's compensation case the basic facts are virtually undisputed. On November 16, 1939, claimant suffered an accident. Four days later, on November 20th, he was examined by a physician who discovered, in the right inguinal region, an "impulse on coughing"; there was no protrusion until November *599 24th when the hernia had descended so there was a visible bulge.
Claimant concedes he has not met the measure of proof required by the "hernia amendment." Act of June 21, 1939, P.L. 520 § 1, added to Act of June 2, 1915, P.L. 736, Art. III, § 306(h),
The compensation board dismissed the petition and the common pleas affirmed. This appeal followed.
In all the cases relied on the pre-existing hernia was conceded or clearly proved. We need not concern ourselves with the quality of proof necessary to establish a pre-existing hernia, whether it must be incontrovertible. We agree with the statement of the court below: "The difficulty with claimant's contention in this case is that there is no adequate evidence to prove the allegation that the claimant had a pre-existing hernia at the time of the accident on November 16, 1939. . . . . ."
"Hernia" is, "The protrusion of a loop or knuckle of an organ or tissue through an abnormal opening." The American Illustrated Medical Dictionary (19th ed.) Surgically, an indirect inguinal hernia may be said to exist as soon as there is a protrusion through the internal ring into the canal. But we are not concerned *600
with niceties in the science of surgery; we are construing a word put in a statute and commonly used by laymen. In Berner v. P. R.C. I. Co.,
Claimant's case fails because of his own testimony that, prior to the accident of November 16th, he had no palpable protrusion and therefore no rupture or hernia in the popular sense; and when the legally cognizable hernia ultimately developed, it, in view of the strict standard fixed by law, must be considered as a physical weakness or ailment which developed gradually and not the result of any accident.
The assignment of error is overruled and judgment entered for defendant.