Court Opinion

ID: 9559160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:23:38.801541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:53.059280
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
KIDWELL, J.,
WITH WHOM
KOBAYASHI, J., JOINS
I respectfully dissent.
This case presents the troublesome question of the weight which should be given to a finding of the Labor and Industrial Relations Appeals Board that a claimant’s testimony as to the occurrence of an injury is incredible in light of the attendant circumstantial evidence. The majority imposes on the board the obligation to resolve all reasonable doubts in the claimant’s favor and concludes that the circumstantial evidence indicating fabrication of the claim was insufficient to overcome the claimant’s testimony. I agree that this court may review the sufficiency of the evidence upon which the board relied in rejecting the claimant’s testimony. However, I cannot concur in the majority’s conclusion that the decision of the board was “clearly erroneous” and subject to reversal under the standard we confirmed in De Victoria v. H & K Contractors, 56 Haw. 552, 545 P.2d 692 (1976).
*310The stringency of this standard is acknowledged by the majority when they say: “If this had been a case where there existed no objective corroboration of claimant’s story, then the board’s finding of a lack of credibility, coupled with expert medical testimony favoring the employer, would permit the board to conclude that the claim was invalid.” Nevertheless, the needed “objective corroboration” (a term which the majority opinion leaves undefined) is found in no more than the likelihood of significant stress on the claimant’s knee in the stumble which fractured his toe. This is accepted as corroboration of the claim and as rendering of no consequence the fact that portions of the claimant’s testimony may have been confused or fabricated. To reach this result the majority states, as an “obvious” medical conclusion, that the stress on the knee aggravated the existing arthritic condition, which event, because it could have contributed to the present condition, must be taken as having been the cause for the purposes of this appeal. But this is a finding which this court cannot make.
There is no medical or other testimony in the record to support the conclusion that the claimant’s fall could have produced sufficient stress on his knee, absent any impact of the knee against the floor or stair, to aggravate the arthritic condition. The claimant did not even attempt to support his claim upon any premise other than a violent impact upon the knee. The testimony of the medical experts supported only the possibility, and not the probability, that such an impact could have contributed to the present condition. Whether the same result could have flowed from mere stress, without an impact, is wholly beyond the knowledge of this court. Since the “objective corroboration” upon which the majority relies in rejecting the board’s finding is itself but sheer speculation, the majority’s own analysis requires that the board’s finding be sustained,
Moreover, the record contains other evidence bearing on the credibility of the claimant’s testimony which the majority does not mention and which, added to that reviewed in the majority opinion, convinces me that the board’s finding *311should be sustained. The failure of the claimant to mention to Dr. Shimamura an injury to his knee while he was under treatment for his fractured toe was significant in the board’s appraisal of his credibility. The claimant testified that he began to feel pain in his knee about a week after the fall, but since he also testified that he saw Dr. Shimamura only during the first week after the accident, this testimony made it appear that no pain was felt while he was seeing Dr. Shimamura and furnished an explanation of his failure to mention to the doctor any injury to his knee. However, Dr. Shimamura testified that he first examined the claimant on August 31, 1970 and treated him until September 30, 1970, when the strapping was removed from his fractured toe. Thus there was evidence, which the board had no reason to disbelieve, that the claimant omitted any mention of the alleged knee injury while under the doctor’s care for about three weeks after the pain allegedly became manifest. When this evidence is added to that which the majority mentions, I have no difficulty in concluding that the record contained substantial evidence in support of the board’s rejection of the claimant’s testimony.
I am unable to view the board’s finding as clearly erroneous on the whole record, and would affirm the order.