Opinion ID: 2634585
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the decedent's cause of death is a disputed issue of fact upon which the trial tribunal's ruling is supported by competent evidence; this alone places causation of death beyond the statutorily permissible orbit of consideration

Text: ¶ 8 Cause of death presented before the trial tribunal a disputed non-jurisdictional fact issue on which we must stand absolutely bound by the trial tribunal's resolution if it rests on competent proof. [11] It is simply impermissible for this court to reweigh adduced causation evidence that is free from probative-value infirmities. [12] The record and Dr. Young's expert medical opinion provide solid competent evidence to establish that the decedent's on-the-job back injury was not the cause of his death. According to the record, the reason decedent's pacemaker had to be surgically removed was not just the need for its replacement in advance of further surgery; it was more than twenty years old, had not been correctly maintained, and was capable of causing irregular heartbeats. Absolutely no evidence shows that the on-the-job injury caused the pacemaker to misfunction. Ample competent evidence demonstrates, in contrast, that the real cause of the decedent's fatal surgery was not his back injury, but his malfunctioning pacemaker, which had been implanted long before the compensable event. ¶ 9 Because the trial tribunal's finding is overwhelmingly supported by competent evidence, today's vacation of its order is statutorily impermissible. In deducing that the decedent's on-the-job back injury caused his death, the court sets forth what it considers the incontrovertible facts and concludes the back injury must have caused the claimant's death during surgery. An obvious legal error is ignored: resolving a disputed set of facts by a new finding  i.e., assuming on review the role of a fact finder  is exactly the genre of judicial re-examination that the provisions of 85 O.S.2001 § 26 explicitly prohibit.