Court Opinion

ID: 9589264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:43:04.633017+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:01.572075
License: Public Domain

*297POFF, J.,
dissenting.
I dissent. I agree the carrier failed to prove actual fraud, and I will assume, without agreeing, that the carrier failed to prove constructive fraud. Yet, I believe the award should be set aside as the product of mutual mistake of a material fact.
I disagree that “the evidence proves merely a unilateral mistake of fact by the carrier”. The fact is that the claimant was intoxicated when he fell. As to that fact, both parties labored under the mistaken notion that the claimant was entitled to workmen’s compensation benefits.
The deputy commissioner based his finding that the mistake was unilateral upon the bare assumption that “[i]f the claimant was intoxicated at the time of the alleged accident, this is a fact which he would have been aware of.” I reject that assumption. An intoxicated person is the last person to realize and the first to deny that he is intoxicated. It may be that the claimant was perfectly honest in believing that he was sober when he fell and that he was thus eligible for compensation. But he was mistaken, even as the carrier was mistaken, and the agreement was void from its inception.