Court Opinion

ID: 9611890
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:01:04.255644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:17.194332
License: Public Domain

DONALD L. Corbin, Justice, concurring in part; dissenting spart. tice, result reached by the majority, but I write separately to express my concern that this opinion not be so broadly construed as to preclude future workers’ compensation claims simply because of the way a doctor phrases his medical opinion. As the majority correctly points out, Ark. Code Ann. § ll-9-102(16)(B) (Supp. 1999) requires that a doctor’s opinion be stated within a reasonable degree of medical certainty, but this requirement does not mean that a doctor’s opinion must be stated in unequivocal terms. The practice of medicine is not an exact science. When a patient relates the history of an injury, the doctor may acknowledge that an on-the-job accident caused the injury, but the doctor may also realize that the particular injury could have resulted from other sources as well. In light of the fact that doctors generally are not present when an employee is injured, it is understandable that their opinions may be stated in less than certain terms. In the present matter, I believe that the majority fails to emphasize a crucial factor common in both this case and Service Chevrolet v. Atwood, 61 Ark. App. 190, 966 S.W.2d 909 (1998), that impacts the reliability of the doctors’ opinions. That factor is the lapse of time following the claimants’ accidents before either of them consulted with a physician. Flere, Frances waited over two months from the time of his accident until the time he sought medical treatment. This lapse certainly contributed to the doctor’s inability to state with certainty that Frances’s injury was work related. Likewise, in Atwood, the doctor stated that an opthamologic exam before and immediately after the injury would be needed to clearly associate the injury with the accident sustained by the appellee at work. Clearly, the facts and circumstances present in both of these cases support a finding that a doctor’s opinion stated in terms of “can,” “could,” “may,” or “possibly” do not meet the requirement of section ll-9-102(16)(B) that the opinion be stated within a reasonable degree of medical certainty. I do not believe, however, that given the right set of facts and circumstances, that a doctor’s opinion will automatically fail to meet this requirement simply because of the use of one of these terms. Concurring in part; dissenting in part. Smith, J., joins.