Court Opinion

ID: 9861459
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 00:04:30.781348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:28:31.066939
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE WEBBER, specially concurring: I concur in the result reached by the majority with great reluctance. Wilson v. Clark (1981), 84 Ill. 2d 186, 417 N.E.2d 1322, is not appropriate for this case. That doctrine is, and should be, limited to generally recognized and accepted medical records. In substance it is a shortcut on foundation requirements. In the case at bar there is no showing that Levine relied upon any records whatsoever in arriving at his conclusions. For all we know, the hypothetical posed to him must have consisted of what petitioner hoped to prove at trial (e.g., product labels). The difference between petitioner’s testimony of what he worked with at respondent’s plant and what Alsmeyer testified to as being produced at that plant is dramatic. However, the entire record appears to sustain petitioner’s contention that he was inhaling dangerous fumes. If I were sitting as the trier of fact, I would have arrived at a different conclusion, but given the deference we must afford to the Commission’s decisions in controverted cases, I have no alternative but to concur.