Opinion
36028.
DECIDED FEBRUARY 1, 1956.
Workmen's compensation. Before Judge Shaw. Fulton Superior Court. October 26, 1955.
Leon Rozen, Frank A. Bowers, for plaintiff in error.
Woodruff, Swift Stephens, Frank M. Swift, contra.
The trial court did not err in affirming the award of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation.
DECIDED FEBRUARY 1, 1956.
Lee Nowell was employed as cement spreader. After having engaged in this work for a number of years the skin on his legs where he had stood in cement became infected or irritated. He made application for compensation under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act as to occupational disease. The single director had the claimant submit himself to the medical board, composed of three members. After the three members of the medical board had made an examination of the claimant, each of them wrote a separate letter to the State Board of Workmen's Compensation. Two of the doctors wrote that the case was compensable; the other doctor held otherwise. Thereafter, the single director wrote an award in favor of the claimant based on this report. Thereafter the insurance carrier filed an appeal from said award, contending that the three doctors did not file a report with the State Board of Workmen's Compensation as required by law and that their separate letters to the board were in disagreement. This appeal was heard by the full board. Subsequently, the full board rendered an order remanding the matter to the medical board "for the purpose of having the medical board file a report of its findings in such form as to permit such report to be mailed to all parties as required by law." Finally, the three members of the medical board signed a joint report holding that the claimant's case did not come within the scope of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation as an occupational disease case. Whereupon the single director wrote another order denying compensation to the claimant. The claimant appealed to the full board, who affirmed the award of the single director denying compensation to the claimant. The claimant filed an appeal to the Superior Court of Fulton County asking that the award against him be reversed. That court affirmed the award of the full board in which compensation to the claimant was denied. On this judgment the claimant assigns error here.
Counsel for the claimant mentions a letter which the chairman of the medical board wrote to the State Board of Workmen's Compensation (stating that an injustice had been done the claimant), after the medical board had made a unanimous report that the facts did not warrant compensation to the claimant on the basis of an accidental disease and after the State Board of Workmen's Compensation had rendered its award against the claimant based on the report of the medical board. The board informed the writer that the law did not provide for the case to be reopened. Counsel for the claimant seeks in his argument here to sustain a judgment and award in favor of the claimant on the basis of an accidental injury as against compensation for an occupational disease. Under the facts of this case we do not think that in any view of the evidence can there be injected the theory of an accidental injury. The claimant is not entitled to recovery under the provisions pertaining to an occupational disease because there is a mass of evidence from experts showing that after having analyzed Portland cement, it was found that such cement does not contain any of the poisons as set forth in Code (Ann. Supp.) § 114-803.
The trial court did not err in affirming the award of the State Board of Workmen's Compensation.
Judgment affirmed. Townsend and Carlisle, JJ., concur.