Court Opinion

ID: 9508780
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 21:37:46.708083+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:38.403320
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE SHEEHY,
dissenting:
I dissent. It is not necessary to discuss such legal quanta as constructive fraud, unilateral mistake, consideration or any other variant of contract or limitations law. It is only necessary to consider here an injured worker who, innocently or not, was induced to trade a $54,750 asset for $21,000. The very purpose of the Workers’ Compensation Act is ignored here by the majority: that purpose to restore in some measure to the worker the losses he sustains from injuries in industry without requiring litigation, all in return for the worker giving up his common law rights of action against his employer. That is the consideration we should regard, and then insist that the worker be protected in that end.
It is simple folly to accept that an injured worker, unskilled in law, is on an equal contractual footing with an agent of the Fund in a discussion of settlement, a settlement initiated by the Fund, holding out visions of sugar plums to the worker to give up his full rights. This is dirty business, and I will not condone it. I would reverse and set aside the unjust agreement.
JUSTICE HUNT concurs in the dissent of JUSTICE SHEEHY.