Opinion ID: 1721028
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: rejected evidence

Text: The evidence offered in refutation of this testimony of the employee consisted of three reports filed with the Industrial Commission as required by law in 1958, including: (a) Exhibit 1: A written report dated April 14, 1958, by Dr. Norman Metcalf of Princeton, Minnesota, concerning the examination of the employee made on March 31, 1958. In a space on the form calling for the history and date of the accident as given by the employee, this appears:  Caught left hand in wire in Highline Construction on March 18, 1958.  (Italics supplied.) There is an absence of reference to complaints of back injury although the wrist injury was noted. (b) Exhibit 2: A written medical report dated April 2, 1958, signed by Dr. William H. Inglis of Redwood Falls, Minnesota, reporting his observations of the employee on March 18, 1958, in which Dr. Inglis, stating the nature of the injury and his diagnosis, wrote: Severe sprain left wrist. No mention of a back injury appears in the Inglis report. (c) Exhibit 4: The employer's first report of injury, executed for Slattery Construction Company by J. E. Slattery, president, which contains this description of the accident: Describe fully how accident occurred: Was reeling up wire with take-up reel. He caught his hand between the wire and the reel. In Industrial Commission proceedings, strict rules of evidence are not generally observed. [1] Facts are frequently found on the basis of medical reports filed with the commission or submitted by the parties. [2] There is no principle which requires the Industrial Commission or its referee to accept in evidence unverified reports filed with it. [3] The frequency with which medical reports are accepted in evidence, however, perhaps gives rise to the assumption on the part of attorneys appearing before the commission that the reports will be received unless good reason appears for rejecting them. [4] 1. With respect to relators' exhibit 1, the employee's recitation of the facts of the accident as reported by Dr. Metcalf is wholly inconsistent with the employee's testimony. If Dr. Metcalf had appeared before the commission to give as testimony the information contained in this report, it would have been clear error to reject it. A prior statement by a party inconsistent with his testimony on an essential issue in the case reported by one to whom the statement was made is admissible as an admission of a party-opponent [5] or, generally, for purposes of impeachment. [6] It is not possible to reconcile the testimony of the employee to the effect that he had fallen while climbing an electric pole, lighting on his back on the ground 15 to 20 feet below, as it appears in his testimony before the referee on September 16, 1966, with the statement made by him to Dr. Metcalf on March 31, 1958 (about 2 weeks after the accident) to the effect that he had caught his left hand in wire in high-line construction. It is difficult to reconcile his testimony that he suffered pain in his low back radiating into his left leg beginning on March 19, 1958, and caused by such a fall with the absence of recorded complaint in this respect in the Metcalf report. It is true that Dr. Metcalf could have been in error in reporting the accident history as he did. It is also possible that the version of the accident contained in his report was given by someone other than the employee. The report was not verified. [7] The adverse parties in the compensation proceedings would have been deprived of the opportunity of cross-examining Dr. Metcalf had exhibit 1 been received. These considerations may have been in the mind of the referee when he rejected Slattery Construction's offer of the exhibit upon objection by Builders Inc. [8] But in view of the sharp conflict on an essential issue of the case, apparent from this report, we believe that Slattery Construction should have been allowed to submit the evidence of Dr. Metcalf to be taken under oath and subject to cross-examination either through deposition or by presenting him as a witness. Slattery Construction moved the referee for an order authorizing the submission of the testimony of Dr. Metcalf in this way, but the motion was denied. In our judgment, particularly in view of the weakness of the evidence of back injury attributable to the 1958 incident, this was error. The proffered testimony goes directly to the critical issue in this matter. We believe it to be needlessly prejudicial to deny Slattery Construction a reasonable opportunity to produce it in an acceptable form. We do not think the employee would have suffered serious prejudice had this course been followed. 2. A somewhat different situation applies to exhibit 2 (the Inglis report) and exhibit 4 (the employer's first report of injury.) (a) There is nothing in the Inglis report which is inconsistent with the testimony of the employee; he acknowledged that he had made no complaint of back injury on March 18. The report contains nothing one way or the other with respect to the manner in which the accident occurred. (b) There is a conflict between the employee's testimony and the employer's first report of injury in so far as it relates the accident facts. But this report attributes no statement to the employee. Further, the employer who prepared this report is an interested party. Under ordinary circumstances a report made by him, even when filed with the Industrial Commission pursuant to its requirements, [9] cannot be received as evidence in his favor over objection where the person making the report has not been subjected to cross-examination under oath. [10] Even so, because this matter must be remanded to the Industrial Commission in order to permit the taking of the deposition of Dr. Metcalf, all parties should be afforded the opportunity of presenting in the proper way any testimony which will be of assistance to the commission or its referee in deciding what occurred on March 18, 1958. If, after receiving this testimony, the commission is satisfied that the version of the incident as given by the employee is correct, it is clear that its allocation of a part of the compensation burden to Slattery Construction is adequately justified by the evidence. If, on the other hand, the evidence is such as to persuade the Industrial Commission that the accident occurred in the way described in the Metcalf report (relators' exhibit 1), a resolution of the case imposing full responsibility for compensation payments on Builders Inc. would be indicated. Reversed and remanded.