"Where a claim for compensation is heard and determined by a single director or a deputy director and a timely application is made to the State Board of Workmen's Compensation within the time required by law, it is the function and duty of the board to hold a de novo hearing in the manner provided in Code § 114-708, which is that the board shall consider the case on the evidence before it, taken as provided in said Code section, and to make independent findings of fact of its own and render an award in accordance with its own findings of fact and law. Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. West, 213 Ga. 296 ( 99 S.E.2d 89)." Sweatman v. Hartford Acc. c. Co., 96 Ga. App. 243 ( 99 S.E.2d 548). The appeal from the deputy director to the full board "is more or less analogous to an appeal from the decision of a justice of the peace to a jury in his court, which our courts have said is a de novo trial."
When it was first here the case was reversed with direction that the full board rehear the case because the full board did not hold a de novo hearing as provided by Code § 114-708. See Sweatman v. Hartford Accident c. Co., 96 Ga. App. 243 ( 99 S.E.2d 548). On the second appearance of the case here the reversal turned on whether or not proper notice had been given. See Sweatman v. Hartford Accident c. Co., 100 Ga. App. 734 ( 112 S.E.2d 440). The case is here now so that this court can pass on the merits and questions of law.
1. It is contended by the plaintiff in error that the full board did not fulfill its legal function in this case of conducting a de novo investigation, but undertook to sit only as an appellate body. Where it appears from the award entered that the board acts upon the case only in an appellate capacity without deciding anew the issues raised, such action is illegal and the award must be reversed. Sweatman v. Hartford Accident c. Co., 96 Ga. App. 243 ( 99 S.E.2d 548); Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. West, 213 Ga. 296 ( 99 S.E.2d 89). The full board may, under Code § 114-708, where no additional evidence is offered by the parties, adopt the deputy director's findings of fact as its own findings of fact, or it may make independent and different findings of fact from the evidence heard by the deputy director ( Ideal Mutual Ins. Co. v. Ray, 92 Ga. App. 273, 276, 88 S.E.2d 428) but it must do one or the other. The board here in its award stated that, after hearing argument and reviewing the entire record it "hereby makes said findings of fact [of the deputy director] its findings of fact."