Opinion · Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Hornetz v. Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co.

Hornetz v. Phila. & Reading Coal & Iron Co., 277 PA 40 (Pa. 1923)

Type
Opinion
Court
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
Jurisdiction
Pennsylvania
Date
1923-03-19
Topic
employee-benefits-and-executive-compensation

How later courts describe this case

  • allowing compensation, and implicitly subrogation, where there was a causal relationship between the work-related finger injury and the employee’s death due to a heart complication

Citator

UpLaw has not yet analyzed Hornetz v. Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co.. The absence of a flag is not a finding that it is good law.

Cited by
40 opinions
Per Curiam,

We adopt the following excerpts from the opinion of the court below: “In this case claimant’s husband sustained a compound fracture of the index finger of Ms *41 right hand, in the course of his employment, on the 31st of March, 1921. He went to the State Hospital at Fountain Springs the next day [to be] operated on by Doctor J. C. Biddle......His death was due to dilatation of his heart, which was caused by the anesthetic administered to him for the purpose of performing a surgical operation on his injured finger. The injury to his finger was ‘violence to the physical structure of his body’...... The violence caused the injury, .the injury caused the operation, the operation caused the ansesthetization, the ansesthetization caused dilatation of the heart and dilatation of the heart caused death. Hence there was a causal connection between the [original] violence and [the subsequent] death.”

It is necessary to add only that there is ample testimony to sustain the award made by the referee and approved by the compensation board and the court below.

Judgment affirmed.