Court Opinion

ID: 9669104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:39:36.829401+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:52.487539
License: Public Domain

CHAPA, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur with the opinion of Chief Justice Reeves and the response of Justice Biery emphasizing the duty of the judiciary to “preserve, protect, and defend” the state constitution by honestly, objectively, and courageously reviewing the constitutionality of any piece of legislation when called upon to do so. Tex. Const, art. XVI, § 1. However, I respectfully dissent with the conclusion of the majority that the Act is constitutional as to the provision granting presumptive weight to the opinions of the designated doctor.
The Act establishes for the first time in Texas a “designated doctor” whose findings are given “presumptive weight” on the issues of impairment ratings and determinations of maximum medical improvement. In creating the presumption in favor of the designated doctor, the legislature hoped to inject a doctor into the system who was more likely to be objective than the doctors chosen by the workers or the insurance companies. The question is whether they succeeded in doing it constitutionally.
The trial court found that the effect of the presumptions given the designated doctor’s testimony “is to arbitrarily subordinate the diagnosis of the worker’s treating doctor and give unreasonable weight to the opinions of the designated doctor who is not the patient’s treating doctor.” The court found that the “presumption is unsound from a medical point of view and arbitrary from an administrative point of view. This presumption is arbitrary and contrary to reasonable medical standards.” The court also found that the designated doctor provision usurps the fact-finding responsibility of the commission and *111the courts. The court found the provision violates the due course, equal protection, and trial by jury provisions of the Texas Constitution.1 I agree with the trial court for the following reasons.
A constitutionally valid presumption must be fairly rebuttable by the party it operates against. A law giving the act of a public official the effect of raising a prima facie presumption, which does not deprive the person affected of the right to fairly rebut the presumption, does not deny one due process. Weatherly v. Jackson, 123 Tex. 213, 71 S.W.2d 259, 267 (1934); Green v. State, 272 S.W.2d 133, 135 (TexApp.—Beaumont 1954, writ refd n.r.e.).
In Mobile, J. & K.C.R. Co. v. Turnipseed, 219 U.S. 35, 43, 31 S.Ct. 136, 138, 55 L.Ed. 78, 80-81 (1910), the United States Supreme Court established further limitations on legislative presumptions, articulating the following test:
That a legislative presumption of one fact from evidence of another may not constitute a denial of due process of law or a denial of the equal protection of the law, it is only essential that there shall be some rational connection between the fact proved and the ultimate fact presumed, and that the inference of one fact from proof of another shall not be so unreasonable as to be a purely arbitrary mandate. So, also, it must not, under guise of regulating the presentation of evidence, operate to preclude the party from the right to present his defense to the main fact thus presumed.
Thus, we must consider these factors in reviewing whether the presumption in favor of the designated doctors outlined in the Act is constitutional.
At the commission hearings, the testimony of the designated doctor is given presumptive weight in the determination of whether the worker has reached maximum medical improvement and what impairment ratmg should be assigned to the injury. §§ 4.25(b), 4.26(g). The commission’s determinations in these areas is to be based on the designated doctor’s report “unless the great weight of the other medical evidence is to the contrary.” §§ 4.25(b), 4.26(g). However, the fact that the designated doctor is chosen only when there is a dispute between the doctors hired by the worker and those hired by the carrier or employer guarantees that in the usual case the other medical evidence will not preponderate against the testimony of the designated doctor unless one party is able to obtain sufficient medical evidence to successfully challenge the designated doctor. Thus, the “great weight” burden obviously unfairly favors the party whose greater resources make it possible to consult and obtain the most medical evidence that agrees with the preferred diagnosis. Although it is true that to some degree greater resources in general place one party in a more favorable position than another in most litigations, here by act of the legislature2 the worker was placed in a less favorable position.
In the context of judicial review, the presumption provision continues to favor the party with the greater resources through the remainder of the adjudication process. In the initial substantial change of condition hearing before the court, the court must accept the presumption in favor of the designated doctor unless rebutted by a preponderance of the medical evidence presented. Thus, the party with the greater resources is again favored at this stage of the process. This initial hearing is critical to the entire judicial process since a condition precedent to the presentation of any new evidence to a jury depends entirely on a substantial change of condition finding by the trial court at this hearing. Consequently, the party with the greater resources has the greater potential to eventually succeed in presenting new evi*112dence to the jury. Moreover, the Act specifically provides that the commission’s evidence and decision be made known to the jury by the court, thus having the effect of notifying the jury of which doctor’s findings found favor with the commission and the potential of usurping the fact finding responsibility of the jury. Consequently, this provision of the Act unconstitutionally denies the worker due process by providing a presumption which is unfairly more rebuttable by the party with the most resources and by usurping the fact finder’s responsibilities.3
Defendants also argue that the presumption in favor of the designated doctor has a rational basis — because designated doctors, who are not aligned with either party, are more likely to be objective and because “it is rational for the trier of the fact to give greater weight to the testimony of a disinterested witness than to the testimony of a self-interested one.” While it may be rational for the trier of fact, in the proper discharge of its duties, to give more weight to the testimony of the disinterested witness, see Tinkle v. Henderson, 777 S.W.2d 537, 539 (Tex.App.—Tyler 1989, writ denied), it is a usurpation of its responsibilities to have this greater weight legislatively mandated. This is especially so in the present statute when the presumption in favor of the designated doctor is not fairly rebuttable and is, as we shall see, arbitrary and unreasonable because there is no rational connection between the facts proved and the fact presumed.
Defendants argue that the presumption cannot be considered arbitrary or irrational merely because the legislature might have excluded consideration of other relevant factors, such as the doctor’s medical qualifications, his or her familiarity with the worker’s condition, and the nature and extent of the examination. In support of this argument, defendants rely on Usery v. Turner Elkhorn Mining Co., 428 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 2882, 49 L.Ed.2d 752 (1976). Before the court in that case was a challenge to the constitutionality of statutory presumptions that coal miners with ten years’ employment in the mines who suffer from pneumoconiosis are presumed to have contracted that disease from their employment and that coal miners with ten years’ employment in the mines who die from a respiratory disease will be presumed to have died from pneumoconiosis. The statute explicitly made these presumptions rebutta-ble, and their effect was simply to shift the burden of going forward with evidence from the claimant to the mine operator. Id., 428 U.S. at 27, 96 S.Ct. at 2898. It was agreed that pneumoconiosis is caused by breathing coal dust and that the likelihood of a miner’s developing the disease rested upon both the concentration of dust the miner has been exposed to and the duration of exposure to the dust. In addition, the United States Congress had before it medical evidence indicating the noticeable incidence of pneumoco-niosis in cases of miners with ten years’ employment in the mines. In light of these facts, the Court held:
Congress was surely entitled to select duration of employment, to the exclusion of the degree of dust exposure and other relevant factors, as signaling the point at which the operator must come forward with evidence of the cause of pneumoconio-sis or death, as the case may be. We certainly cannot say that the presumptions, by excluding other relevant factors, operate in a “purely arbitrary” manner.
Id. at 29-30, 96 S.Ct. at 2899.
We are cited to nothing in the legislative record to indicate that designated doctors will be inherently more accurate in their diagnoses than doctors hired by workers or carriers. We cannot even assume, as we are apparently urged to do, that designated doctors will in every case be impartial or that all hired doctors will abandon their professional responsibilities to please whoever pays them and are therefore unreliable. The presumption is particularly inappropriate when, as in the present case, the procedures adopted *113make rebuttal unfairly more available to the party with the most resources.
In Usery, the Supreme Court held that a presumption does not constitute a denial of due process or equal protection if there is some rational connection between the fact proved and the ultimate fact presumed and that the inference of one fact from proof of another is not so unreasonable as to be a purely arbitrary mandate. Usery, 428 U.S. at 28, 96 S.Ct. at 2898.
In the Act, the fact “proved” is that the designated doctor reached medical conclusions regarding the injured worker. The fact presumed is that those conclusions are accurate and, conversely, that the conclusions of the doctors who disagree are inaccurate. There is no rational connection between the fact that the designated doctor diagnosed the injured worker and the accuracy of that diagnosis. The Act creates a “purely arbitrary mandate.” Turnipseed, 219 U.S. at 43, 31 S.Ct. at 138.
I agree with the trial court that the designated doctor provision is unconstitutional. In addition to the previously discussed constitutional infirmities, the provision violates the open courts, due process, and equal protection requirements of our constitution because it arbitrarily grants conclusive effect to the opinion of one doctor, especially one who is not the treating physician.4
GARCIA, J., joins.

. The majority opinion correctly points out the several reasons why the Texas Constitution offers significantly broader due process protection than the federal constitution, which is clearly recognized by the United States Supreme Court. City of Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle, Inc., 455 U.S. 283, 293, 102 S.Ct. 1070, 1077, 71 L.Ed.2d 152 (1982).

. We must remain cognizant that the prior law replaced by the Workers' Compensation Act contained no presumptions, and it was the jury that appropriately assessed the credibility of all witnesses, including medical witnesses, and what weight, if any, to be given their testimony.

. Under our judicial system, it is the primary function of juries to weigh the testimony of various witnesses and assess the credibility of each one. In hearings before the court, the trial judge is charged with the responsibility of gauging the credibility of the witnesses. Thus, all fact finders must be free from any undue influences to exercise their discretion in this respect, or their fact finding responsibilities will be usurped.

. The following colloquy between Senators Parker and Glasgow regarding the presumption provision is instructive:
PARKER: So is the answer to your question we’re not gonna rely on these insurance doctors now, we’re gonna rely on this agency designated doctor to tell us when we're well. Is that the difference?
GLASGOW: Well no. We're going to rely upon that but it’s only presumptive and it can be rebutted with anything in the world.
PARKER: Well, if there’s-no, not with anything in the world now....
GLASGOW: Medical testimony, other medical testimony.
PARKER: Or you got to prove him wrong, clearly wrong, don't you?
Debate on Tex.S.B. 1 on the Floor of the Senate, 71st Leg., 2d C.S., Tape 1 at 19-20, Tape 2 at 1 (Dec. 12, 1989) (transcript available from Senate Staff Services Office).