No. 14248 

IN THE SUPREME CCURT QF THE STATE OF MONTANA 

1978 

Claimant and Appellant, 

BECHTEL CORPORATION, Einployer, 

aIfi 

INDUSTFIX, INDEMNITY CQMPANY, 

Defendant and Respondent. 

Appeal frcnn: hbrkers' Ccanpensation Court 

Honorable William E. Hunt, Judge presiding. 

Counsel of Record: 

For Appllant : 

Burgess, Joyce, Prothero and Whelan, Butte, Mntana 

For Respondent: 

Marra, Wenz, Iwen and Johnson, Great Falls, Wntana 

Sutmitted on briefs: November 3, 1978 

Decided. JAh J *. 1379 

Filed: 1%~ - "9% 
Mr. Justice John C. Sheehy delivered the Opinion of the 

Court. 

Charles E. McGee, claimant, appeals from the amended 

findings of fact, conclusions of law and judgment dated 

March 6, 1978, entered by the Workers' Compensation Court, 

sitting in the Butte area, county of Deer Lodge. McGee's 

employer at the time of the industrial accident was Bechtel 

Corporation, and Industrial Indemnity Company was the 

industrial accident insurer for Bechtel. 

The Workers' Compensation Court by its judgment decided 

that McGee was not entitled to permanent total disability 

benefits under the Workers' Compensation law and limited 

his recovery to the benefits recoverable under the specific 

injury statute (section 92-709, R.C.M. 1947) and to such 

temporary total disability compensation benefits as he 

had received while convalescing. 

We sustain the decision of the Workers' Compensation 

Court. 

McGee, then 35 years old, married and the father of 

four minor children, was employed as a pipefitter-plumber 

foreman in 1974 by Bechtel Corporation in the construction 

of the Arbiter Plant in Anaconda. About June 26, 1974, 

McGee's vision became blurred at work, not the result of 

any traumatic injury. That evening he consulted Dr. Burton, 

a Butte eye specialist, who diagnosed a detached retina 

in the right eye. 

On arrangements made by Dr. Burton, McGee was examined 

by Dr. F. Tempe1 Riekhof, a Salt Lake City ophthalmologist, 

who specialized in ophthalmologic surgery. Dr. Riekhof 

found a giant tear in the retina of the right eye (a "giant 

tear" is one which extends more than 90 degrees around 

the peripheral part of the retina, in this case a tear 
extending 150 to 160 degrees). He also found two areas of 

retinal degeneration and beginning detachment in the left 

eye, resulting from a genetic condition. The condition in 

the left eye was described as "lattice degeneration". The 

patient had no complaints regarding his left eye at the time 

of his initial examination. 

On July 2, 1974, Dr. Reikhof performed surgery to 

reattach the retina of the claimant's right eye and during 

the same procedure also performed surgery on the left eye 

which he termed a "cryopexy", a procedure consisting of spot 

welding the two small areas where holes appeared in the 

lattice degeneration of the left eye. 

Following his surgery, McGee returned home to recover. 

Sometime in July 1974, his vision had improved and he was 

released to work in a supervisory capacity. He returned to 

work as foreman on July 27, 1974. The apparent return to 

normality of the claimant's vision was an encouraging 

indication of the successful reattachment of the retina, 

according to Dr. Reikhof. 

On July 27, 1974, while at work reading a blueprint, 

claimant was soundly slapped on the back by a well-wishing 

fellow employee. McGee immediately noticed the deterioration 

of the sight in his right eye and again sought medical 

treatment in Butte, Salt Lake City (Dr. Reikhof was not 

available), and finally in San Francisco, where Dr. Roger E. 

Atkins, attempted in surgical procedure to reattach the 

retina of the right eye. The attempt was unsuccessful. Dr. 

Atkins contemplated a second operation once the vitreous 

fluids cleared and the optic nerve became visible, and 

meanwhile advised McGee to return to Butte and consult his 

local eye specialist, Dr. Francis P. Nicholson, a Butte 

ophthalmologist. 
In August 1974, McGee returned to San Francisco, where 

Dr. Atkins concluded the right eye retina could not be 

reattached. A vitreous fluid transplant was performed to 

avoid enucleating the right eye. However, vision in the eye 

was completely and permanently lost. 

Before the Workers' Compensation Court, the employerinsurer contested whether an industrial accident had occurred 

here. The Workers' Compensation Court found that the injury 

did arise out of and in the course of his employment and was 

compensable. No appeal is taken by the employer-insurer on 

that point. 

The main thrust of the proceedings before the Workers' 

Compensation Court was to determine whether McGee was 

permanently and totally disabled as a result of the loss of 

vision in his right eye, under the particular circumstances 

of this case. McGee was advised by Dr. Atkins, Dr. Nicholson, 

and also by Dr. George Sale, a Missoula ophthalmologist, 

that he should never return to work as a plumber, or any 

other work requiring rapid movement and physical strain 

because of the danger of a further detachment of the retina 

of his left eye with resulting total blindness, this being 

considered by the doctors a risk too great to take. 

The letter from Dr. Atkins, dated March 31, 1976, 

states he did not feel that McGee was "in any way qualified 

from a physical standpoint to continue with this sort of 

heavy physical labor he had previously done. The only way 

in which he could become employable would be through a deep 

rehabilitative process which took him into a sedentary 

occupation requiring rather little in the way of reliance of 

good vision." 

Dr. Nicholson's letter of March 23, 1976, stated: 

". . . It is reasonable to expect further 

visual deterioration in Mr. McGee's left eye 
in the future, and with this in mind, - 

regardless of visual efficiency charts 

or complex computative formulae, - in 

my opinion, Mr. McGee has sustained 

almost 100% visual disability. 

"There is no question in my mind that he 

should be proscribed from working for the 

rest of his life." 

Dr. Sale's letter of March 22, 1976, stated: 

"Mr. McGee's occupation is that of a 

pipefitter, which is entirely unsuitable 

for a person who has had bilateral retinal 

detachments . , -" 

The condition of McGee at the time of the hearing was 

that he had total and permanent loss of vision of his right 

eye, and his left eye was correctable to 20/25, which 

according to the A.M.A. evaluation of permanent visual 

impairment comes to five percent loss of central vision in 

his left eye. His visual field in the left eye is normal. 

Dr. Reikhof's opinion is completely contradictory to 

that of the other doctors. Dr. Reikhof testified, in essence, 

that assuming that the retina in the left eye were successfully 

repaired by the cryosurgery which he performed, he would 

have no objection to Mr. McGee "going back to any type of 

employment which did not carry a significance of a direct 

blow to his head. I believe that the reading of the morning 

paper, if you will, is as potentially as traumatic to the 

vitreous and the retina inside the eye, as anything he will 

do on the job, any job. . ." Dr. Reikhof would have no 

objection to McGee picking up a 150 pound bale of hay, or 

straining to have a bowel movement or any such thing that 

might involve physical strain. His opinion was that there 

was no way that those kinds of things could result in a 

retinal tear or a retinal detachment of the left eye. He 

further discounted the possibility of an adverse influence 

on the good eye from a physiological interference arising 

out of the loss of the right eye. 
The Workers' Compensation Court specifically found that 

the lattice degeneration of the left eye of McGee and the 

small area of detachment found there originally did not 

result from an industrial accident, nor was the condition 

one that arose out of his employment. It further found that 

there was no evidence to sustain a finding that the claimant 

lost the sight of his left eye or that there was any causal 

connection between the deficiencies sustained by the claimant 

in the use of his left eye and any injury arising out of his 

work. 

Thus, the net effect of the findings by the Workers' 

Compensation Court is that the claimant McGee lost the sight 

of his right eye in an industrial accident, but that the 

present condition of his left eye is genetically induced and 

is not the result of an industrial accident. 

McGee further contends on appeal that he is in fact 

totally disabled because he has not engaged in any gainful 

employment since July 27, 1974 and that he dare not engage 

in work because of the danger of a further retinal detachment 

of his left eye. 

In its amended finding of fact No. 15, the Workers' 

Compensation Court noted the disagreement of Dr. Reikhof and 

Dr. Nicholson as to whether a person who has had a detachment 

of the retina in one eye is more susceptible to a detachment 

of the other eye. While the court did not specifically 

indicate which doctor it agreed with, impliedly it accepted 

the testimony of Dr. Reikhof that further detachment of the 

retina in the good eye is uncommon, where the lattice 

degeneration in the good eye has been arrested by cryopexy. 

The Workers' Compensation Court awarded claimant 

benefits under the specified injury statute allowing him 140 

weeks of compensation for total blindness of one eye, in 

addition to the 26 weeks of convalescent disability benefits 

he had already received. 

-6- 
The issue confronting us in this case is clear. On the 

one hand the claimant McGee claims he is totally disabled, 

and has not worked since the industrial accident. Three 

doctors, including the surgeon who last operated on him, 

indicate he cannot do heavy physical work. On the other 

hand, the surgeon who performed the cryopexy and the first 

reattachment of the retina on his right eye maintains that 

the danger of bilateral detachment in his case is remote and 

commends him for any kind of physical labor, where he is not 

in danger of receiving a direct blow on the head. The 

Workers' Compensation Court found in accordance with the 

latter opinion. Whether this Court agrees is of no moment. 

Since credible and substantial evidence appears in the 

record in support of the Workers' Compensation Court, we are 

bound by its decision on the facts. Rule 52(a), Mont.R.Civ.P.; 

Smith v. Pierce Packing Co. and Pacific Insurance Co. 

(19781, Mont. , 581 P.2d 834, 35 St.Rep. 979; 

Robins v. Anaconda Aluminum Company (1978), Mont . 

, 575 P.2d 67, 35 St.Rep. 213; Bond v. St. Regis Paper 

Company (1977), Mont . , 571 P.2d 372, 34 St.Rep. 

1227, 1238. 

The decision of the Workers' Compensation Court is 

affirmed. - 

! 

J Justice / 

We Concur: 

Wief Justice <. 

WLP--& Jus es