Court Opinion

ID: 9707949
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 02:25:43.419767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:40.449296
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE SIMON, concurring in part and dissenting in part: I agree that claimant’s injury was work related. I do not understand, however, why we cannot decide now whether the Industrial Commission properly determined that his injury leaves him permanently and totally disabled instead of remanding this case to the Industrial Commission for additional inquiry with attendant delay and more expense. The majority directs the Commission to take further evidence to determine either that claimant could with diligent effort find work within the range of his limited capacity or that no stable employment market exists for the kind of job claimant is now capable of holding. I think this is an unrealistic, useless and unnecessary exercise to which neither the claimant nor the Commission should be put. We are dealing here with a 45-year-old disabled laborer, who converses in Spanish rather than English. He is partially paralyzed and suffers from residual aphasia, an organic brain defect impairing his ability to express thoughts and ideas. His only work for at least the past 9 years has been extremely strenuous laboring jobs. He can no longer do that type of work. His own employer, Valley Mould, apparently has no other job suitable for him. Claimant is handicapped in seeking another job by his language shortcomings, specialized work experience and physical problems. With the State of Illinois and the Chicago metropolitan area suffering, as they have for the past few years, from the greatest unemployment experienced in almost half a century, I would consider any success claimant, plagued by those handicaps, had, with even the most diligent of efforts, in finding a job a complete fluke. The Industrial Commission implicitly found that there was no stable market for Munoz’s skills when it found him to be totally and permanently disabled. In handling its day-to-day business the Commission is often forced to inquire into the employment market, and I believe that the Commission has some expertise in determining whether no stable market exists for claimant’s skills. The evidence already in the record is enough to support the Commission’s conclusion that the claimant is obviously unemployable at least in the labor market which currently exists and is likely to continue for the forseeable future. As I view it, directing the Industrial Commission to conduct further proceedings to determine whether there is a job somewhere for claimant would be a waste of time, effort and money. If the majority were remanding the case to the Industrial Commission to ascertain a fact, I might view the majority’s conclusion differently. But, what the majority is remanding this case for is in reality an opinion of the Industrial Commission, a prediction about the likelihood that claimant can find a job he can physically perform. Who really knows? Moreover, if the record is incomplete it is not the claimant’s fault. When his counsel attempted to establish for the record what education he had, an objection interfered with this effort. If Valley Mould feels the record is incomplete without this information, it should not have interfered with the introduction of this evidence. For these reasons I dissent from the portion of the decision which remands this cause to the Industrial Commission.