Court Opinion

ID: 9707305
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:08:11.099681+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:30.876732
License: Public Domain

*243COLLINS, Justice,
concurring in the result.
I write separately to express my reservations about the Court’s standard of review. I do not agree with the Court’s suggestion that the Commission’s weighing of the circumstances relating to work-connection must be affirmed unless arbitrary or without rational foundation.
The facts of this case are undisputed, and thus the question is one of law. The Commission stated without explanation or analysis that “in light of the factors enumerated in Comeau v. Maine Coastal Services, 449 A.2d 362 (Me.1982) ... Ms. Do-rey’s ankle injury did not arise out of or in the course of employment with” Forster. The Commission then denied Ms. Dorey’s request for further findings of fact and conclusions of law, citing our decision in Parent v. Great Northern Paper Co., 424 A.2d 1099, 1100-1101 (Me.1981).
Parent, however, concerned the sufficiency of the evidence to support factual findings. Where, as here, the issue is the appropriateness of a legal conclusion, Parent and its progeny require the Commission to make adequate and detailed findings and conclusions. See Ladner v. Mason Mitchell Trucking Co., 434 A.2d 37, 40 (Me.1981); Gallant v. Boise Cascade Paper Group, 427 A.2d 976, 977-78 (Me.1981). The Commission’s improper denial of Ms. Dorey’s request deprives us of the ability to conduct a meaningful appellate review. See Gallant, 427 A.2d at 977-78.
The Appellate Division reversed the Commission’s decision, concluding that the Co-meau factors were satisfied and therefore the injury was employment-related. ..Contrary to the Court's assertion, there is no indication that the Appellate Division engaged in de novo review. The Appellate Division did not examine the evidence nor the Commission’s factual determinations, but instead reviewed the Commission’s decision for “misconception of applicable law.” See Pomerleau v. United Parcel Service, 464 A.2d 206, 209 (Me.1983).
The Court now vacates the judgment of the Appellate Division — not on the basis of legal error, nor even on the basis that the Commission was correct in its application of the law, but on the basis that the Commission could have been correct had it reached the same result by reasoning that it admittedly did not use. Even though the Appellate Division concluded that the Co-meau factors were satisfied, the Court now reviews on the basis that “the Comeau factors are not exclusive” and therefore that the Commission could have rationally found the injury not to be employment-related — implicitly conceding, I think, that the Commission’s bald conclusion that the Comeau factors were not satisfied is indefensible. The Court concedes that it is reviewing the Commission’s decision only for arbitrariness or irrationality in the result.
But this mode of review, only for the lack of any possible rational basis for the Commission’s decision, is one that we have rejected. In Ladner, the Commissioner had refused to state specific findings of fact and conclusions of law. On appeal, therefore, we remanded rather than imposing our own findings and conclusions, stating unequivocally:
[Rjather than assume that the Commissioner made certain factual findings or applied certain legal standards, we must apply “stricter appellate review” and review only “the factual findings actually made and the legal standards actually applied.”
Ladner, 434 A.2d at 40 (quoting Gallant, 427 A.2d at 977). In this case, of course, we know neither what findings the Commission made nor what standard it applied, yet the Court unhesitatingly affirms on grounds not, apparently, relied on by the Commission.
Justice Carter noted, while concurring in the result in Comeau, that the standard it imposed precludes meaningful appellate review. Comeau, 449 A.2d at 373 (Carter, J., concurring). Because we have rejected de novo review of issues that are committed to the Commission’s technical expertise, see Dunton v. Eastern Fine Paper Co., 423 A.2d 512, 514-17 (Me.1980), Justice Carter predicted that the Court would be forced to sustain the exercise of untrammeled discre*244tion by the Commission, even where the Commission does not deign to enunciate any reasoning whatever. This case, I fear, bears out his prediction.
I would vacate the decision of the Appellate Division and direct that this case be remanded to the Commission for proper findings of fact and conclusions of law, consistent with Parent and Ladner, in order that its decision might be properly reviewable on appeal.