SPIRO T. AGNEW, Governor                       273

which was created on this date; provided, that the Subsequent In-
jury Fund shall assume the defense and a payment of all claims
made against the Second Injury Fund for injuries which arose prior
to June 1, 1963.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That this Act shall take effect
June 1, 1967.

Approved April 14, 1967.

CHAPTER 155
(House Bill 473)

AN ACT to add new Section 25A to Article 101 of the Annotated
Code of Maryland (1964 Replacement Volume), title "Workmen's
Compensation," subtitle "Application of Article; Extra-Hazardous
Employments," to follow immediately after Section 25 thereof, to
provide for workmen's compensation benefits for occupational
deafness due to industrial noise, to provide for the manner of
determining loss of hearing caused by such employment, to provide
for the filing of claims, to allocate liability for such occupational
deafness among employers and to relate to occupational deafness
and compensation therefor.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland,
That new Section 25A be and it is hereby added to Article 101 of the
Annotated Code of Maryland (1964 Replacement Volume), title
"Workmen's Compensation," subtitle "Application of Article; Extra-
Hazardous Employments," to follow immediately after Section 25
thereof, and to read as follows:

25A.

(a)    Occupational deafness shall be compensated according to the
terms and conditions of this section.

(b)    For compensation purposes losses of hearing due to industrial
noise shall be confined to the frequencies of 500, 1000, and 2000
cycles per second. Loss of hearing ability for frequency tones above
2000 cycles per second are not to be considered as constituting dis-
ability for hearing.

(c)    The per cent of hearing loss, for purposes of the determina-
tion of compensation claims for occupational deafness, shall be
calculated as the average, in decibels, of the thresholds of hearing
for the frequencies of 500, 1000, and 2000 cycles per second. Pure
tone air conduction audiometric instruments, approved by nation-
ally recognized authorities in this field, shall be used for measuring
hearing loss. If the losses of hearing average 15 decibels or less in
the three frequencies, such losses of hearing shall not then constitute
any compensable hearing disability. If the losses of hearing average
82 decibels or more in the three frequencies, then the same shall
constitute and be a total or 100 per cent compensable hearing loss.