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123 Me. 46

Spencer's Case

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided June 12, 1923

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1923-06-12

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“The original agreement had the legal effect of a judgment on what it purported to cover, but it covered only the injury to the fingers. The thumb was not included. Therefore the claimant still had the legal right to file the presgnt original petition for injury to his thumb....”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Wacome v. Paul Mushero Construction Co.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1923-06-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently June 2025

3 state decisions

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Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Hanson, J.

¶1The claimant was injured on October 29, 1920, his injury consisting of the loss of two fingers and the laceration of the *47thumb on the left hand. An agreement of settlement was filed January 9, 1921, and duly approved January 12, 1921, whereby the claimant was awarded $12.27 per week for fifty-five weeks, commencing November 8, 1920, for the injury of the two fingers. The agreement specified the injury for which compensation was thereby awarded as “amputation first and second fingers left hand.”

¶2On July 17,1922, the claimant filed the pending petition to determine the extent of the permanent impairment of the thumb. On this petition the commission awarded a compensation of $12.27 for the further period of twenty-five weeks to begin at the expiration of the period of fifty-five weeks specified in the previous agreement. From this award the pending appeal was taken.

¶3The decision of the commission should stand. The original agreement had the legal effect of a judgment on what it purported to cover, but it covered only the injury to the fingers. The thumb was not included. Therefore the claimant still had the legal right to file the present original petition for injury to his thumb, provided he did so within the two years’ limitation specified in Section 39. He was within that limitation, and it makes no difference whether his petition is filed before or after the expiration of the fifty-five weeks specified in the original agreement.

¶4This case is the converse of Foster’s Case, 123 Maine, 27. In that case the original agreement in terms covered three injuries, and it was held that as to these three the claim was res adjudicata. In the pending case the agreement covered two injuries, and the petition is for a third. Therefore, it is not affected by the previous award.

¶5The entry must be,

¶6Appeal dismissed. Decree of sitting Justice affirmed.

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