United Electric Coal Co. v. Industrial Commission

The issue is whether the award of the Industrial Commission, confirmed by the circuit court of Peoria County, was against the manifest weight of the evidence. The claimant, Joseph Cole, was employed by the respondent, United Electric Coal Co., for 28 years, during which time he was exposed to coal dust. From 1959 until June 1973, when he retired, he operated a “shovel,” similar to a steam shovel, in respondent’s strip mine in Illinois; and from 1945 until 1959 he worked underground in respondent’s mine in Kentucky. The arbitrator, finding the claimant “wholly and permanently incapable of…