Court Opinion

ID: 9687699
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:42:39.683712+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:30.133390
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring specially.
I concur in the majority opinion. I write separately to note that if materiality were to be a test not only for repayment of past benefits but for a denial of future benefits as well, the test would appear to me to be met in this instance. I agree that we should sustain the Bureau’s determination that the false statement did not affect its payment of benefits but it is exactly the type of statement which I believe strikes at the heart of the reason for the enactment of section 65-05-33, NDCC, because it is a statement which could have misled the Bureau and the medical experts upon which it relied to conclude that Kania’s problems were due to his fall rather than due to the injury in the previous automobile accident. I assume the purpose of the question on the claim form asking whether or not the claimant had prior problems or injuries to his middle back and left hip was to determine whether or not the current problem is due to a work-related injury or to a previous injury or condition. To falsify the answer to that question is an attempt to mislead the Bureau as to a most material fact. It is perhaps due more to coincidence and Kania’s good fortune, if not the benevolence of the Bureau, rather than immateriality that the Bureau was not deceived.