4248

LAWS OF MARYLAND

Ch. 770

Upon the filing of a claim for compensation for death
from an occupational disease where an autopsy is necessary
to accurately and scientifically ascertain and determine the
cause of death, such autopsy shall be ordered by the medical
board and shall be made under the supervision of the
[coroner,] CHIEF medical examiner [or public official
equivalent thereto]. The medical board may designate a duly
licensed physician, who is a specialist in such
examinations, to perform or attend such autopsy, and to
certify his findings thereon. Such findings shall be filed
with the medical board and shall be a public record. The
Workmen's Compensation Commission also may exercise such
authority on its own motion or on application made to it at
any time by any party in interest, upon the presentation of
facts showing that a controversy may exist in regard to the
cause of death or the existence of any occupational disease.
All proceedings for compensation shall be suspended upon
refusal of a claimant or claimants to permit such autopsy
when so ordered, and no compensation shall be payable for
any period during which autopsy is refused.

The Workmen's Compensation Commission shall refer every
claim for compensation for an occupational disease to the
medical board for investigation, hearing and report,
excepting, however, such cases wherein there are not
controverted medical issues. No award shall be made in any
such case until the medical board shall have duly
investigated and heard the case and made its report and its
decisions with respect to all medical questions at issue.
The date of disablement, if in dispute, shall be deemed a
medical question.

The medical board, upon reference to it of a claim for
occupational disease, shall notify the claimant or claimants
and the employer to appear before it at a time and place
stated in said notice. At such hearing either party may
offer testimony of such witnesses as they may desire, which
shall become a part of the record of the proceedings before
the medical board. If the employee be living, he shall
appear before the medical board at the time and place
specified and shall then or thereafter submit to such
examinations, including clinical and X-ray examinations, as
the medical board may require. The claimant and the
employer or his insurance carrier shall each be entitled, at
his own expense, to have present at all examinations
conducted by the medical board, a physician admitted to
practice medicine in the State who shall be given every
reasonable facility for participating in every such
examination. If a physician admitted to practice medicine
in the State shall certify that the employee is physically
unable to appear at the time and place designated by the
medical board, the board shall, on notice to the parties,
change the place and time of examination to such other place
and time as may reasonably facilitate the examination of the
employee. Proceedings shall be suspended and no