Opinion ID: 2609756
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Did an Accident Occur?

Text: The referee assumed that in light of his decision, that Roberts failed to prove that he had sustained a work-related injury, it was unnecessary to address the further question of whether Roberts had proved that such injury resulted from an accident, within the meaning and intent of I.C. § 72-105(15). Nevertheless, the referee put himself to the exercise of conducting just such an analysis, and concluded therefrom that Roberts' testimony at the hearing did not support a conclusion that he had experienced an unexpected, undesigned, and unlooked for mishap, or untoward event, connected with the industry in which it occurs, and which can be reasonably located as to time when and place where it occurred, causing an injury. The actual fact of the matter is otherwise. The referee arrived at his decision by relying on our opinion in Perez v. J.R. Simplot Co ., where we said that an employee cannot prove that an accident (or an unexpected event) occurred merely because of experiencing pain in the hip after standing in one place for two hours. Perez v. J.R. Simplot Co ., 120 Idaho at 438, 816 P.2d at 995. An accident must be something more; it must result in violence to the physical structure of the body. Id., 120 Idaho at 437, 816 P.2d at 994 (citing referee conclusions of law). Roberts' case fills that billing, and is distinguishable from Perez. Roberts did not merely experience pain; rather he was the victim of an unexpected event that resulted in injury to the physical structure of his body, the rupturing of his disc. As Dr. Henbest testified, a disc which ruptures within a short span of time can be reasonably located both as to time and to place. Surely, beyond cavil, a ruptured disc is an unexpected event within the purview of the Worker's Compensation Act. The referee also determined that nothing in the record warranted the inference that a recent traumatic event, rather than the calcified ligament or osteophytic processes which apparently had occurred over a long period of time, caused Roberts' pain. To the contrary, Dr. Henbest's testimony and his letter specifically warrant, in fact, demand such inferences, in that Dr. Henbest asserted that the ruptured disc was Roberts'most significant problem and that Roberts' pain and paralytic symptoms were consistent with diagnosis of a ruptured disc. Finally, the referee mundanely asserted and the Commission blithely bought into the proposition that it is nothing more than bootstrapping to attempt to argue that since someone had pain one day, he must therefore have had an accident ... at some earlier time to cause that pain. It is true that the Commission and this Court expressly rejected such arguments in Perez v. J.R. Simplot Co., 120 Idaho 435, 816 P.2d 992. But this is not the scenario now before this Court. Dr. Henbest, both by his letters in the record and by his testimony given in a deposition taken by the defendants, was not refuted in the slightest, and at this point is and remains unrefuted. Roberts can point to a precise mishap, the rupturing of his disc, as an aftermath of extremely hard physical work, which presently remains as the uncontroverted explanation for his resultant symptoms of paralysis and pain. For all of these reasons, unless the Worker's Compensation Act is to be scrapped, the Commission's decision should be reversed with directions that the full Commission reconsider. If the decision of the referee affirmed by the Commission is left in place, then the message which goes out to the working populace in Idaho is clear: The promise of sure and certain relief under the act was but a hollow promise.