275 Pa. 397 | Pa. | 1923
Opinion by
This is a workmen’s compensation case. Plaintiff’s husband, Steye Zelazny, was employed as a motorman in defendant’s coal mine at Chambersville, Indiana County, his duty being to bring trainloads, called “trips,” of coal out of the mine and when dumped to return the
Zelazny died in the course of his employment1 and it was manifestly not a case of suicide, therefore it must have been either an accident or from natural causes. The finding that it was an accident is entitled to the same weight as the verdict1 of a jury and must be sustained if supported by evidence (Mt. Calvary Methodist Protestant Church Trustees, 272 Pa. 453; Pasquinelli v. Southern Macaroni Mfg. Co., 272 Pa. 468; Kuca v. Lehigh Valley Coal Co., 268 Pa. 163; Hand’s Case, 266 Pa. 277) and we have reached the conclusion that it is. Like any other fact, the cause of death may be found from circumstances; here a robust man of middle age, without a known ailment, is found dead with two marks of violence upon his person, either of which might indicate a fatal injury, that on the shoulder as an electric burn and that on the .forehead as accompanied by a fracture of the skull or rupture of a blood vessel in the brain. It is a reasonable theory that the deceased climbed upon the coal car, some three and one-half feet in height, to see how the unloading of other cars was progressing, and by some mishap his shoulder came in contact with the highly charged trolley wire which hung six feet and eight or ten inches above the track, and slightly to one
We cannot pass upon the accuracy of the lower court’s exclusion of the day of the accident in computing the ten-day waiting period, as this was favorable to appellants and neither excepted to nor assigned it as error.
The judgment is affirmed.