Court Opinion

ID: 9792871
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:38:21.827036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:01:20.488364
License: Public Domain

CROFT, District Judge
(dissenting):
I concur in the dissent of Justice Hall that there is no substantial evidence in the record to support the conclusion of the Commission that defendant Wilkins was totally disabled following his accident of April 15,1977, until January 1,1978. I am satisfied that defendant was injured in his fall from the truck on April 15, 1977, with a resulting and recurring pain in his back in the weeks that followed. I am not satisfied that the injury resulted in any more than a temporary partial disability.
We are here dealing with the question as to whether the evidence presented to the Commission supports its finding of temporary total disability of Wilkins up to January 1, 1978.
Under our law, in case of temporary disability, the compensation provided for by statute is payable “so long as such disability is total.”1 I find no definition of “total disability” in our statutes. Whether an employee is totally disabled is an ultimate matter to be decided by the Commission.2 The function of a medical panel is to give the Commission the benefit of its diagnosis relating to those matters within its expertise, and not to infringe upon the Commission’s responsibility to decide the issue of total disability.3
What is “total disability”? I agree with Justice Crockett’s statement that it does not mean a state of abject helplessness or that the injured employee must be unable to do any work at all. I do not agree that the test is met if the employee “can no longer perform the duties of a character required in his occupation prior to his injury.”
99 C.J.S., Sec. 304(b), Workmen’s Compensation, states that temporary total disability is the healing period or period during which “the claimant is unable to work and is totally disabled and recovery is reasonably expected.” In Caillet v. Industrial Commission of Utah, 90 Utah 8, 58 P.2d 760 (1936), Justice Wolfe, in his dissenting opinion, said:
Temporary total disability is founded on actual disability,
and further that total disability means
disablement of the particular applicant to earn wages in the type of work (not just the particular work he did do) he was trained for or any other type of work *500which a person of his mentality and attainments could do.
Justice Wolfe also stated that he did not think the doctors are competent to give testimony on whether an applicant is economically totally disabled.
It seems to me that in the case before this Court that is exactly what the medical panel did. In the quote from the medical panel report cited by Justice Crockett, it was stated that the panel recognized that defendant was carrying out significant personal business a good portion of the time, particularly following the fire (August 29, 1977), and undoubtedly some of the time prior to the fire, and might by someone be considered during that time as being able to work part-time, but that in the opinion of the panel, he was “substantially disabled” for significant employment by another party during that period. As was stated in IGA Food Fair v. Martin (supra), that impresses me as but “a gratuitous conclusion upon a matter of fact unrelated to its medical expertise.”
Wilkins’ activities before the fire noted by Justice Hall in his dissent involved traveling and making sales and deliveries of camper shells. This activity was terminated by the destruction of the business by fire, not by the pain defendant said he felt as he watched his business being destroyed by the uncontrollable flames. The examining physician’s report on the pain felt after the fire was “recurrent back strain again today with the fire fighting and clearance of things.”
The medical panel report recites that after the fire, and during September, October and November, Wilkins spent a good deal of time visiting bankers and doing other things trying to get back into business. No visits to the doctors occurred during those three months. A visit on December 30, 1977, to Dr. Pratt disclosed his problem then was “allergic rhinitis,” which the dictionary 4 defines as an “inflammation of the nose or its mucous membrane.” Dr. Pratt’s pencilled notation for that date also appears to state that his left leg was “becoming worse, muscle deterioration,” yet the medical panel found his period of total disability ended the next day.
I search the medical records of the two treating physicians in vain for any suggestion that defendant was totally disabled. At most, one finds medication and a week or so of rest as the prescribed treatments. His activities following the loss of his employment until the end of 1977 as disclosed by the record falls far short of the “actual disability” test suggested by Justice Wolfe. Nor do I think the record sustains a finding that defendant could not “perform work of a general character he was performing when injured, or any other work which a man of his capabilities may be able to do or learn to do.” 5
I would reverse the Commission’s order and remand the case for further proceedings to determine Wilkins’ entitlement, if any, under Section 35-1-66 to relief for partial disability.
MAUGHAN, C. J., does not participate herein; CROFT, District Judge, sat.

. Sec. 35-1-65(1), U.C.A.1953.

. Spencer v. Industrial Com’n, 87 Utah 336, 40 P.2d 188 (1935).

. IGA Food Fair v. Martin, Utah, 584 P.2d 828 (1978).

. Random House Dictionary of the English Language, The Unabridged Edition.

. Thomas v. Industrial Com’n, see footnote 5 in Justice Crockett’s opinion.