Court Opinion

ID: 9581889
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:20:09.833315+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:19.165310
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
dissenting.
The very first page in Vernon’s appellate brief needs to be reproduced, as it has apparently escaped the attention of Justice Bakes in the drafting of his proposed majority opinion:
This is the second appeal to be heard by this Court in this same matter. In the first appeal, Claimant appealed from an Industrial Commission order which held that there was not substantial and competent evidence to support the Claimant’s position that the injury she suffered was work related.
This Court held for the Claimant and found in a 5-0 decision that concluded:
Here the Commission simply recited the conflicting evidence presented without resolving the factual conflicts. In short, the Commission’s factual findings and conclusions of law are incomplete and need to be expanded before we can properly exercise our appellate review function. Accordingly, we vacate the Commission’s decision and remand back to the Commission with the instruction that it make more detailed factual findings and conclusions of law to support its ultimate holding.
1987 Opinion No. 88, p. 6.
But, in addition to the above, three of the Justices agreed that:
If anything, there is even less reason today to accord any deference to the notion that a Claimant must specify with particularity a single event or happening which constitutes the ‘accident’ or results in the claimed injury. This state’s legislative amendment to Idaho Section 72-201 (resulting in the present Idaho Code 72-102) (14)(b) requires that this Court accord more, and certainly not less, consideration to Claimant’s attempts to reasonably locate their injuries than this Court did seventy years ago.

I would rule that on the basis of this record Claimant has amply demonstrated that her back injury arose from her heavy lifting at work and that the accident has been reasonably located as to the time and place of its occurrence.

*492Justice Huntley’s Opinion: 1987 Opinion No. 88, p. 12. (emphasis added)
In essence, despite these findings, the Industrial Commission has chosen to disagree with this Court as to the definition of the ‘accident’ as that term has been defined by statute and also as that term has been defined by case law issued by the Idaho Supreme Co.urt.
Appellant’s Brief, p. 1-2 (emphasis in original). Page 10 of that brief provides this:
The revised findings of fact as found by the Industrial Commission do much to bolster Claimant’s argument herein. This case has now narrowed down to the single issue of an ‘accident.’ The Industrial Commission specifically found that:
Based upon the evidence presented, the Commission is not persuaded that the Claimant injured her back in mid-June 1983. Most significantly, the Claimant relates no specific mishap or event which produced her low back pain.
Again, the Industrial Commission apparently wants a falling, or a tumbling, or a tripping to take place before it is going to recognize an ‘accident.’ And once the Claimant falls or trips, he or she must yell out in pain in order to immediately notify the employer of this mishap.
The Industrial Commission is unwilling to recognize that low-back injury at work could easily occur and should be recognized as such when a woman who is 43 years of age, weighs approximately 132 pounds, and lifts up to 9 tons of primers a day. In lifting up to 9 tons or primers a day, the Claimant was stooping, bending, twisting, and manually handling each tray of primers as she removed them from their storage binds, lifted, twisted, and placed them upside down on the work bench in front of her.
The evidence at trial was clear and unrefuted that the Claimant was involved in no other extracurricular activity that could have caused the damage to her back and that she felt the initial pain while she was at work performing her duties, and that pain worsened as she still attempted her work duties.
The Idaho Supreme Court has stated previously that:
As this Court has repeatedly stated, ‘If a Claimant be engaged in his ordinary usual work and the strain of such labor becomes sufficient to overcome the resistance of Claimant’s body and causes an injury, that injury is compen-sable.’
Wynn v. J.R. Simplot Co., 105 Idaho 102 at 104, 666 P.2d 629 [at 631] (1983).
The facts of the Wynn case are blatantly similar to those of the present case. In both cases, the workers performed strenuous labor. In both cases, the Claimants suffered a back injury which required surgery. In Wynn a ruptured disk, and in the present case, a herniated disk. Both Claimants presented uncontroverted testimony from their attending physicians that the injuries were work related. In Wynn the Court overruled the Industrial Commission decision which denied benefits.
Appellant’s Brief, p. 10-11 (emphasis supplied).3
Mr. Brown’s opening remarks at oral argument informed us that he thought he had won when he read the 1987 opinions. When we decided Vernon v. Omark I, it was believed that his client should have won but didn’t, based on being unaware that Judge Bengston had joined Justice Huntley’s opinion. Later, when this case resurfaced, on reading our three reported opinions in 113 Idaho, it was inescapable that she had won.
As the excerpt from the brief illustrates, Justice Donaldson had three concurrences *493plus one vote concurring in the result, but there was also the special concurrence by Justice Huntley, with Justice Bistline and Justice Pro Tem Bengston concurring. Justice Donaldson’s opinion vacated the Commission’s decision and remanded the cause to the Commission with the instruction that it make more detailed factual findings and conclusions of law to support its ultimate holding, which was to deny any benefits. Apparently, in retrospect, that italicized phrase was not a good choice of words, as it certainly was capable of being read as stating that the ultimate holding was not wrong but the findings and conclusions as written insufficiently supported it. The Commission very well could have so concluded. At the same time it also may not have realized the judicial effect of there being two opinions which commanded the votes of a majority of the Court.
When Justice Donaldson submitted his opinion which reversed the denial of benefits, the initial concurrences indicated approval of reversing. But there was no intention that new findings and conclusions be drawn solely as to support a new decision denying benefits. The ultimate conclusion would depend on the findings and conclusions to which the Commission arrived. That, of course, concerned only the Donaldson proffered opinion. Thereafter, in the manner that such things take place, Justice Huntley and Justice Bistline also wrote to express somewhat differing views, or in addition to the views of Justice Donaldson.
My special concurrence was directed at amplifying on the Donaldson comments as an intended aid to the Commission in redetermining whether the claimant “sustained her burden of proving her injury resulted from an accident,” per Donaldson, J., 113 Idaho at 360, 744 P.2d at 88. My opinion was based on the precedent and the teachings of the Wynn case:

Most working people can be expected to want to remain on the job, not because they enjoy the heavy lifting and concomitant back pain, but because the pay check is a necessity. They are not kennel hounds, but motivated workers.

Repetitive trauma sets the stage for an injury to occur, as per Wynn, and, in the absence of any evidence, any other activity to which the surety or the employer can point, and which is attributable as being the culprit — it is only reasonable and fair to conclude that the ultimate injury was job-related. The legislature has only required that it be reasonably located as to time and place. It would be improper for the Commission or this Court to require more of a heavy-lifting claimant than a best recollection [as to when the incident likely occurred].
Vernon v. Omark Industries, 113 Idaho 358, 361-362, 744 P.2d 86, 89 (1987). My separate opinion was in the mill at the same time that Justice Huntley was independently writing his separate opinion, as witnessed by the conclusion in mine: “In the final analysis in these cases, the answer is to be found, as Justice Huntley suggests, by eliminating other possible causes for which there is no supporting evidence.” Justice Huntley, after reading my opinion added footnote 2 to his opinion.
His opinion provided guidance to the Commission in further proceedings. When it garnered two votes in addition to his own vote, it became a directive. He wrote:
However, I would also like to highlight what I believe to be the major problem source in cases of this kind. As stated in the majority opinion, I.C. § 72-102(14)(b) requires that before a claimant recover for an accident or injury occurring in the work place or on the job, such accident or injury must be ‘reasonably located as to time when and place where it occurred.’ Simply put, that statute does not require a plaintiff to pinpoint an exact time when the injury occurred, but only a reasonable estimate of such. Indeed, in unique cases such as this, where a claimant has, in all likelihood, suffered an injury as a result of cumulative and repeated stress or trauma, it would simply be unfair and unreasonable to require the impossible of *494a claimant who is not able to pinpoint one exact date upon which such an injury or accident occurred.
Prior to the 1971 comprehensive amendment of the workmen’s compensation law, I.C. § 72-201 (the predecessor of the present I.C. § 72-102(14)(b)) read: ‘Accident’ as used in this law, means an unexpected, undesigned, and unlooked for mishap, or untoward event, happening suddenly and connected with the industry in which it occurs and which can be definitely located as to time when and place where it occurred, causing an injury as defined in this law.” (Emphasis supplied). By deleting the words ‘happening suddenly,’ and supplanting the words ‘definitely located’ by the words ‘reasonably located,’ it is evident that this state’s legislature meant to require of the claimant only such proof as to time when and place where any injury occurred as was reasonably possible.
Also of some importance is the fact that this Court has long recognized that justice and fairness require that, in cumulative injury cases, the claimant is not required to pinpoint an exact date of an injury or accident.
In Reinoehl v. Hamacher Pole and Lumber Co., 51 Idaho 359, 6 P.2d 860 (1931), this Court ruled that a claimant who had died of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever resulting from tick bites received over a period of two weeks while on the job had a compensable ‘accident,’ even though the cause of the claimant’s death could not be attributed to one particular tick bite. Reinoehl was, itself, merely one in a line of cases so holding.
In McNeil v. Panhandle Lumber Co., 34 Idaho 773, 203 P. 1068 (1921), this Court addressed a case strikingly similar to the one at hand. In McNeil, repeated heavy lifting on the job gradually caused the detachment of claimant’s retina, loss of the right eye, and, in that particular case, total blindness. This Court refused to deny McNeil his right to recover for failure to fix with particularity the time when his ultimate injury occurred, stating:
Undoubtedly in most cases of accidental injury the claimant would be able to fix not only the day but the hour, if necessary, when the accident occurred. But in a case of this kind in which the injury may not appear for some time after it has been actually inflicted by the accident, it would be manifestly unfair and a denial of justice to refuse compensation because the claimant could not identify the very day of the accident, though he could fix the time with reasonable certainty. To so hold would be to misconstrue the main provisions of this (workmen’s compensation) law, whose purpose is declared by the legislature to be to provide sure relief for injured workmen and their families and their dependents. (Citation omitted). The workmen’s compensation law, like other laws of this state, is to be liberally construed with a view to effect its object and promote justice. 34 Idaho at 786, 203 P. at 1081.
♦ * * * * *
I WOULD RULE THAT ON THE BASIS OF THIS RECORD CLAIMANT HAS AMPLY DEMONSTRATED THAT HER BACK INJURY AROSE FROM HER HEAVY LIFTING AT WORK AND THAT THE ACCIDENT HAS BEEN REASONABLY LOCATED AS TO THE TIME AND PLACE OF ITS OCCURRENCE.
Vernon v. Omark, supra, 113 Idaho at 362-363, 744 P.2d at 90-91, per Huntley, J. (emphasis added).
Justice Huntley was advised that I concurred in his opinion, including that which he would hold.4 Unbeknownst to me until much later in preparing for this second appeal was that Justice Pro Tern Bengston *495had also joined the Huntley opinion. One plus one plus one equals three. Three of us therefore “would hold” and thus did hold “that claimant had amply demonstrated that her back injury arose from her heavy lifting at work and that the accident has been reasonably located as to the time and place of occurrence.”
Any time that there are three votes for a given holding in a given opinion that becomes on a five-man court, the law of the case.
The rule is well established and long adhered to in this state that where, upon an appeal, the Supreme Court, in deciding a case presented states in its opinion a principle or rule of law necessary to the decision, such pronouncement becomes the law of the case, and must be adhered to throughout its subsequent progress, both in the trial court and upon subsequent appeal.... Suitts v. First Security Bank of Idaho, 110 Idaho 15, 713 P.2d 1374 (1985) (quoting from Carlson v. Northern Pacific Rail Co., 86 Mont. 78, 281 P. 913, 914 (Mont.1929).
Matter of Barker (Barker v. Fischbach & Moore, Inc.), 110 Idaho 871, 872, 719 P.2d 1131, 1132 (1986).
Barker, coincidentally, not only is a landmark case insofar as the doctrine of law of the case is concerned, but it also was a workers’ compensation case and a case which came before the Supreme Court on appeal on two occasions.
The first appeal, Barker I, is found at 105 Idaho 108, 666 P.2d 635 (1983). (Another coincidence is that it is located side-by-side with Wynn v. J.R. Simplot Co., 105 Idaho 102, 666 P.2d 629 (1983).) Just as here Justice Donaldson authored Vernon I, he also authored Barker I, which would have been unanimous except for the dissent of Justice Bakes. The holding in Barker I was “that as a matter of law the Commission erred in the way it applied Spanbauer5 to the facts of this case.” In reversing and remanding the Court instructed the “Commission to determine if other evidence, besides the payment of travel expenses, exists to support a finding that [claimant] was within the course of employment at the time of the accident.” Barker I, 105 Idaho at 111, 666 P.2d at 638. In Barker II, the second appeal, after stating the doctrine of the law of the case, the Court’s per curiam opinion, set out herein-above, went on to add in conclusion:
As we noted in Suitts, the doctrine of law of the case has long been the rule in this jurisdiction. See Palmer v. Dermitt, 102 Idaho 591, 595, 635 P.2d 955, 959 (1981); Creem v. Northwestern Mut. Fire Ass’n of Seattle, Wash., 58 Idaho 349, 352, 74 P.2d 702, 703 (1937); Unfried v. Libert, 23 Idaho 603, 606, 131 P. 660, 661 (1913); Hall v. Blackman, 9 Idaho 555, 75 P. 608 (1904). In fact, this Curt has often compared the doctrine of law of the case with the principle of res judicata, indicating that an appellate court is bound by the law of the case. See Idaho Dept. of Law Enforcement v. One 1955 Willys Jeep, 100 Idaho 150, 157, 595 P.2d 299, 306 (1979) (Bistline, J., dissenting); Creem v. Northwestern Mut. Fire Ass’n of Seattle, Wash., 58 Idaho 349, 358, 74 P.2d 702, 705 (1937) (Ailshie, J., dissenting in part); Hall v. Blackman, 9 Idaho 555, 559-560, 75 P. 608, 609 (1904).
The Industrial Commission correctly applied the law announced by this Court in Barker I to the facts of this case. Accordingly, the order of the Industrial Commission is affirmed; costs to respondent.
Barker II, 110 Idaho 871, 872-73, 719 P.2d 1131, 1132 (1986) (emphasis supplied). If memory serves me correctly, the Court’s per curiam opinion in Barker II was authored by Justice Bakes.
That which Justice Donaldson first wrote, i.e., the cause remanded for redrawn findings and conclusions, is not inconsistent with what the other majority opinion of Justice Huntley holds. Three of *496us decided the issue which Justice Donaldson’s opinion had earlier stated should be reconsidered by the Commission. Nothing was left for the Commission to attend to other than the preparation of a new set of findings and conclusions which would sustain this Court’s ultimate conclusion,6 purely a ministerial act.
At this point we should again vacate the decision of the Industrial Commission. The directions on remand should be that the Commission make the necessary determinations as to the extent of claimant’s permanent impairment and then as to her permanent disability. Thereafter a proper monetary award should be computed and ordered.
HUNTLEY, J., concurs.

. Omark’s brief sloughed off this issue, stating only that "The Appellant argues that the Commission failed to adhere to the directive of the Supreme Court as set out in the special concurrence of Justice Huntley.” It goes without saying that capable counsel representing Omark and the State Insurance Fund is well aware that the special concurrence was that of Justice Huntley, joined by two other members of the Court. In turn, Justice Bakes sloughed off the issue by ignoring it.

. "I would hold” is appropriate language to be used where at the time of writing the author does not know that he will gain two concurrences.

. Spanbauer v. Peter Kiewit & Sons Co., 93 Idaho 509, 465 P.2d 633 (1970).

. Justice Donaldson died in office shortly after our opinions issued. As his office was in charge of the release of opinions in this case, it is not known whether he had learned of Justice Pro Tem Bengston’s concurrence in Justice Huntley's opinion. As stated, that news was not CO' veyed to me. Had it been during Justice Donaldson’s lifetime, I would have suggested that he rewrite his opinion so as to avoid leaving any possibility of an ambiguity in further proceedings. Accepting things as they are, there is not any conflict in our two majority opinions. The second in point of time, Justice Huntley’s, modified and superseded the first in just the one particular.