{
  "id": 2675394,
  "name": "ERWIN WEIDLE Plaintiff-Employee v. CLOVERDALE FORD, Defendant-Employer, and INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Carrier",
  "name_abbreviation": "Weidle v. Cloverdale Ford",
  "decision_date": "1981-02-03",
  "docket_number": "No. 8010IC581",
  "first_page": "555",
  "last_page": "557",
  "citations": [
    {
      "type": "official",
      "cite": "50 N.C. App. 555"
    }
  ],
  "court": {
    "name_abbreviation": "N.C. Ct. App.",
    "id": 14983,
    "name": "North Carolina Court of Appeals"
  },
  "jurisdiction": {
    "id": 5,
    "name_long": "North Carolina",
    "name": "N.C."
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    {
      "cite": "144 S.E.2d 3",
      "category": "reporters:state_regional",
      "reporter": "S.E.2d",
      "weight": 2,
      "year": 1965,
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          "page": "4"
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        {
          "page": "4-5"
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      "cite": "265 N.C. 329",
      "category": "reporters:state",
      "reporter": "N.C.",
      "case_ids": [
        8575220
      ],
      "weight": 2,
      "year": 1965,
      "pin_cites": [
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          "page": "330-331"
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        {
          "page": "331"
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T22:39:05.008611+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
  },
  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "Judges Webb and Martin (Harry C.) concur."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "ERWIN WEIDLE Plaintiff-Employee v. CLOVERDALE FORD, Defendant-Employer, and INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Carrier"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "WHICHARD, Judge.\nIn Lawrence v. Mill, 265 N.C. 329, 330-331, 144 S.E.2d 3, 4 (1965), the North Carolina Supreme Court, per Justice Higgins, stated:\nIn compensation cases the Commission finds the facts. If the findings have evidentiary support in the record, they are conclusive. However, the question whether the evidence is sufficient to support the findings is one of law to be determined by the courts.\nWe thus review the evidence here solely to determine its sufficiency to support the findings on which plaintiffs award is based.\nThe totality of the evidence in this record is the testimony of plaintiff quoted in full above. That testimony, and thus the record in its entirety, is devoid of evidence to support the findings of the Commissioner which were adopted by the Full Commission. The finding based on the Commissioner\u2019s personal observation, standing alone, is inadequate; for it affords the appellate court no basis for review.\n\u201cThe Legislature has provided that the [Workers\u2019] Compensation act shall be liberally construed but it does not permit either the Commission or the courts to hurry evidence beyond the speed which its own force generates.\u201d Lawrence, 265 N.C. at 331, 144 S.E.2d at 4-5. There being no evidence in the record to support the finding that the injury to plaintiff\u2019s finger resulted in \u201cserious bodily disfigurement\u201d within the meaning of G.S. 97-31(22), the decision of the North Carolina Industrial Commission is\nReversed.\nJudges Webb and Martin (Harry C.) concur.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "WHICHARD, Judge."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "No brief filed for plaintiff-appellee.",
      "Hudson, Petree, Stockton, Stockton and Robinson, by Grover G. Wilson, for defendant-employer and defendant-carrier, appellants."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "ERWIN WEIDLE Plaintiff-Employee v. CLOVERDALE FORD, Defendant-Employer, and INTERNATIONAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Defendant-Carrier\nNo. 8010IC581\n(Filed 3 February 1981)\nMaster and Servant \u00a7 74\u2014 workers\u2019 compensation \u2014 serious bodily disfigurement \u2014 insufficient evidence\nThere was no evidence in the record to support a finding by the Industrial Commission that an injury to plaintiffs finger resulted in \u201cserious bodily disfigurement.\u201d\nAppeal by defendants from Opinion and Award of the North Carolina Industrial Commission, by Commissioner Coy M. Vance, filed 11 April 1980. Heard in the Court of Appeals 9 January 1981.\nDefendant-employer and defendant-carrier appeal from an award to plaintiff for \u201cserious bodily disfigurement\u201d resulting from a cut finger sustained by accident arising out of and in the course of plaintiff\u2019s employment with the defendant-employer.\nThe record contains an Opinion and Award by Deputy Commissioner W. C. Delbridge in which the Commissioner made the following Finding of Fact:\nAs a result of the injury in question, plaintiff has disfigurement which was viewed by the undersigned and is described as follows:\n\u201cLet the record show that the undersigned observed the right middle finger of the plaintiff on the right hand and noted that the nail and just beneath the nail there is evidence of a scar apparently where it was injured and that the fingernail itself is disfigured in that it is marked to the extent that it has a roughish appearance and then there is deformity of the nail.\u201d\nThe Commissioner further found that as a result of the injury plaintiff \u201chas suffered bodily disfigurement... which is permanent and serious and is such as would tend to hamper plaintiff in his earnings in seeking employment\u201d and \u201cthat proper and equitable compensation for said disfigurement is $100.00.\u201d He thereupon awarded plaintiff the sum of $100.00. The Full Commission changed the amount of the Award form $100.00 to $200.00 and otherwise adopted and affirmed the Opinion and Award of the Commissioner.\nThe only evidence contained in the record on appeal is the following summary of testimony of the plaintiff:\nMy [name] is Erwin Weidl (sic); I am 42 years old and a body repairman for Cloverdale Ford. On August 12,1978 I was cutting out on a car, slipped on some metal and sliced open my right middle finger behind my fingernail. Since I returned to work in September 1978 I have continued to work in the same position with Cloverdale Ford. The injury causes me no discomfort. I have the same duties that I had before the accident, perform the same tasks and do nothing different in my work than I did before. I do not suffer any embarrassment on the job as a result of my finger.\nNo brief filed for plaintiff-appellee.\nHudson, Petree, Stockton, Stockton and Robinson, by Grover G. Wilson, for defendant-employer and defendant-carrier, appellants."
  },
  "file_name": "0555-01",
  "first_page_order": 581,
  "last_page_order": 583
}