Court Opinion

ID: 9695958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:31:53.628446+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:17.567483
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Justice
(dissenting).
*145Claimant presented his case to the Deputy Industrial Commissioner on the theory that he was suffering from lung infection by lead poisoning and chemical pneumonia arising out of and in the course of his employment. He made no claim in his petition for hearing or in his trial brief that he had inhaled zinc chromate paint fumes or that he was suffering from chroihe ulceration and poisoning. Indeed, claimant himself never testified that he had inhaled zinc chromate paint fumes. The only testimony in the record on this matter came from one of claimant’s physicians, Dr. Berg, who testified that:
“He (claimant) was painting in a close space using zinc chromate and lead-based paints apparently, from the information we have here, for the prior six weeks to the onset of the symptoms.”
On cross-examination, however, Dr. Berg acknowledged that he had never made any examination into the type of paint fumes that might have been involved in claimant’s illness, that he did not know what type of paint fumes claimant had inhaled, that he did not know what agents might have been in the paint claimant was using, and that the only information he had in this regard was what he had been told by claimant. There is no evidence in the record to establish that this hearsay information given by claimant to his doctor had any basis in fact in view of the utter lack of foundation that claimant had any knowledge of what type of paint fumes he had inhaled at his place of employment. Thus I would hold that the Deputy Industrial Commissioner’s finding that claimant had inhaled zinc chromate paint fumes was not supported by substantial, credible and reasonable evidence. Oviatt v. Oviatt Dairy, Inc., 80 S.D. 83, 119 N.W.2d 649, and cases cited therein.
Even if we elevate Dr. Berg’s testimony regarding the zinc chromate paint fumes to the level of evidence sufficient to support a finding, claimant’s case still falls short in view of the Deputy Industrial Commissioner’s finding that as a result of inhaling such fumes claimant had suffered “bronchitis and bronchiolitis due to chemical irritation and pneumonia due to chemical irritation” and his conclusion that claimant was suffering from an occupational disease as defined under the Occupa*146tional Disease law. Unfortunately, bronchitis, bronchiolitis and pneumonia due to chemical irritation were not diseases enumerated in SDCL 62-8-2 as then in effect.
The majority opinion implicitly recognizes that to be compensable claimant’s condition must fall within one of those statutorily enumerated diseases set forth in SDCL 62-8-2 and that bronchitis, bronchiolitis and pneumonia are not compensable diseases under that statute.* Without substantial credible record evidence, cf. Podio v. American Colloid Co., 83 S.D. 528, 162 N.W.2d 385, to support such a finding, the majority opinion then holds that claimant was suffering from chrome ulceration and poisoning. Such a judicial tour de force requires more medical knowledge than I lay claim to.
In short, claimant tried his case on the wrong theory: he never claimed that he had inhaled zinc chromate paint fumes or that he was suffering from chrome ulceration and poisoning. He is the beneficiary of what' in another case was described as a “theory transplant” and a rescue, operation for a “litigation casualty”. United States v. Falstaff Brewing Corp., 410 U.S. 526, 93 S.Ct. 1096, 1122, 35 L.Ed.2d 475, 506. (Rehnquist, J., dissenting. )
I would reverse.

 SDCL 68-8-2 was repealed by Ch. 286, § 2, Laws of 1971. Claimant’s condition would now arguably be covered under SDCL 62-8-1(4), which as amended by Ch. 286, § 1, Laws of 1971 reads: “ ‘Occupational disease’ means a disease peculiar to the occupation in which the employee was engaged and due to causes in excess of the ordinary hazards of employment and includes any disease due or attributable to exposure to or contact with any radioactive material by an employee in the course of his employment.”