Court Opinion

ID: 9588704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:37:11.710887+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:00.010950
License: Public Domain

Smith, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The majority reverses the decisions of both the administrative law judge and the reviewing board, principally because the administrative law judge’s order contained a passing reference to the “natural inference” that Cato’s death due to a heart attack was work-related. This result is wrong for at least three reasons.
First and foremost, the majority wrongly erects an inflexible rule of law which bars use of the “natural inference” in heart attack cases where the manifestations of the illness occur when the worker is away *899from his job. I think that the very nature of heart attack cases demands that a common-sense inference of job-relatedness be available to the hearing officer, whether the fatal attack occurs on or off the job site. The cases demonstrate that recovery for off-the-job heart attacks was, at least until today’s decision, routine. See, e.g., Maryland Cas. Co. v. Dixon, 83 Ga. App. 172 (63 SE2d 272) (1951). Today’s opinion will undoubtedly curtail recovery by otherwise deserving claimants whose only misdeed is that they happen to die at home in bed and not during working hours. I cannot agree with such a result.
Second, there exists in this record ample evidence, apart from the “natural inference,” to authorize the award under the “any evidence” standard for review of factual determinations in workers’ compensation cases. See Guye v. Home Indem. Co., 241 Ga. 213, 217 (244 SE2d 864) (1978); Bloodworth v. Continental Ins. Co., 151 Ga. App. 576 (260 SE2d 536) (1979). The administrative law judge heard the evidence in this case, including conflicting medical testimony, and entered detailed findings of fact indicating that Cato’s death was work-related. We should not disturb this ruling.
Third, in my view the administrative law judge was correct to rely on the “natural inference” in a case such as this one, where conflicting medical evidence was introduced concerning the cause of Cato’s death. “The fact-finder may rely on several different forms of evidence in such cases to establish whether there is a causal connection between the employment activities and the heart attack: medical opinion, lay observations and opinion,, and ‘the natural inference through human experience.’ ” Carter v. Kansas City Fire &c. Ins. Co., 138 Ga. App. 601, 604 (226 SE2d 755) (1976). The inference is in reality nothing more than a common-sense approach based on “ ‘ human experience from the connection of cause and effect, and observations of human conduct,’ ” Guye v. Home Indem. Co., supra, at 216. As such it is a valuable tool of the hearing officer, and should not be discarded upon the presentation of conflicting medical evidence. This is, I believe, most consistent with the beneficent, remedial purposes underlying our workers’ compensation act. Samuel v. Baitcher, 247 Ga. 71, 73 (274 SE2d 327) (1981).
I am authorized to state that Justice Clarke and Justice Gregory join in this dissent.