Court Opinion

ID: 9695238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:13:25.245205+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:12:23.530824
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
(dissenting). In this workmen’s compensation proceeding the injured applicant, Cora Colstad, was not represented by counsel. When this occurs, both the commission and the reviewing courts should be zealous to see that the applicant’s rights are properly protected.
Sec. 102.18 (1), Stats., provides that “Pending the final determination of any controversy before it, the commission may after any hearing make interlocutory findings, orders, and awards which may be enforced in the same manner as final awards.”
The findings-of-fact portion of the award entered by the examiner in behalf of the Industrial Commission provided as follows:
“It is uncertain whether the applicant may sustain renewed temporary disability or further permanent disability or whether she may require further treatment as a result of the injury. Jurisdiction is therefore also reserved to award *78further benefits in the event of further disability or need for further treatment.”
The order portion of such award also contained the following statement: “Jurisdiction is reserved in certain respects as above stated.”
The employer and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, its insurance carrier, moved for review before the commission, and the commission, upon such review, entered an order which affirmed both the findings and order of the examiner’s award. Clearly the findings and order of the commission were interlocutory in character. The attorney general contends in his brief that the portion of sec. 102.18 (1), Stats., above quoted, gives the commission the power to enter such an interlocutory order in any workmen’s compensation case, while it was the position of the learned trial judge, as expressed in his memorandum decision, that before the commission can exercise the authority conferred upon it by statute to enter an interlocutory award there must be evidence in the record which would warrant the commission in taking such action, and that the commission cannot rely on its own knowledge from experience in determining in which instances it will enter interlocutory awards. On this point the position taken by the trial court is the correct one for reasons stated in the majority opinion, and for the further reason that knowledge of the commission not based upon evidence in the record could never be the subject of court review.
Pursuant to the request of the commission the insurance carrier, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, filed with the commission before the hearing the written report of Dr. PI. L. Greene of the result of his examination of applicant which was in the form of a letter addressed to such insurance company dated August 24, 1951, and was based on his examination of Mrs. Colstad made August 21, 1951. At the hearing, the examiner considered such medical reoort as *79constituting part of the evidence in the case, and did so over the express objection of counsel for the employer and insurance carrier. In addition to computing the applicant’s permanent partial disability as being 64 per cent of loss of the leg at the hip, the letter contained this significant statement:
“It is my opinion that this woman sustained a fracture of the neck of the femur which at the present time is in a definite state of nonunion. There is also a Smith-Peterson nail inserted through the head which has penetrated into the acetabulum. I do not believe that this woman can walk on this leg. I feel that she will be confined to two crutches as long as she lives unless some type of operative procedure is performed. Even with this she would have to walk with the aid of some support. It would be my opinion that she has at least 50 per cent permanent partial disability and in addition to this she has one-and-a-half-inch shortening which gives her 64 per cent permanent partial disability of the hip as compared to amputation. It is my opinion that there will be no improvement in this case unless surgery is performed and then I do not believe that she will be returned to any kind of employment(Italics supplied.)
Certainly the above-italicized last sentence of Dr. Greene’s report is open to the interpretation that because of the injury to the leg Mrs. Colstad will never be able to work again. If the permanent partial disability is to be measured on the basis of the percentage of loss of leg at the hip, the governing statute is sec. 102.52 (10), which provides 500 weeks as a schedule disability for loss of leg at the hip joint, subject to the adjustment to be made for age in case the employee is above fifty years of age at the time of injury. On the other hand, if the injury, even though to the leg, is of such nature as to disable the employee from being employed in any capacity, then the governing statute is sec. 102.44 (3) (a) and (b), which imposes a maximum liability for permanent partial disability of 1,000 weeks for persons fifty years of age subject to be adjusted downward at the rate of two and one-half *80per cent per year for each additional year of age beginning at fifty-one, subject to a maximum reduction of 50 per cent.
2 Larson, Law of Workmen’s Compensation, p. 44, sec. 58.20, states:
“The great majority of modern decisions agree that, if the effects of the loss of the member extend to other parts of the body and interfere with their efficiency, the schedule allowance for the lost member is not exclusive. A common example of this kind of decision is that in which an amputation of a leg causes pain shooting into the rest of the body, general debility, stiffening of the hip socket, or other extended effects resulting in greater interference with ability to work than would be expected from a simple and uncomplicated loss of the leg.”
The foregoing quotation is particularly applicable to the statements appearing in Dr. Greene’s report which indicated that as a result of the nonunion of the fracture at the neck of the femur, and the working of the Smith-Peterson nail out of position in the hip socket, Mrs. Colstad was totally disabled, and that such condition would never improve without surgery. Therefore, on the basis of such statements in the report, the applicant was entitled to greater permanent partial disability than would be obtained by using the schedule weeks of disability for loss of a leg at the hip as a basis for computing the same.
Assuming that counsel for the employer and its insurance carrier are correct in their contention that Dr. Greene’s written report was not admissible in evidence, leaving no evidence to sustain the making of an interlocutory award, then this court should set aside the award and findings and remand for further proceedings by the authority vested in the reviewing court by sec. 102.24 (1), Stats. This is because it was the duty of the commission, • acting through the examiner, to protect the rights of the applicant who was not represented by counsel to see that available evidence necessary for applicant’s case was put into the record in admissible form. Here the *81examiner of the commission had information in the form of Dr. Greene’s report which indicated that applicant was then totally disabled from working because of the failure of the fracture to knit and the slipping out of place of the Smith-Peterson nail with resulting injury to the hip socket, and that she probably would never improve without surgery. If the report were true, then either applicant was entitled to more than permanent partial disability based upon 64 per cent of loss of leg at the hip only, or to have an interlocutory award entered in the event the permanent partial disability to be presently awarded be limited to 64 per cent of loss of leg at the hip. Upon objection being made by counsel to the receipt of Dr. Greene’s report in evidence, it was the duty of the examiner to either adjourn the hearing and have Dr. Greene subpoenaed to appear at a further hearing, or to obtain his verified medical report in a form admissible in evidence, pursuant to sec. 102.17 (1) (as).
It is customary for the commission to inform applicants that they do not necessarily need counsel to represent them in workmen compensation cases, thus leading applicants to believe that the commission will fully protect their rights. Where the commission, acting through its examiner, receives evidence of vital importance to applicant’s claim in a form which a reviewing court later rules is inadmissible, the applicant should not be prejudiced thereby. The only way that applicant’s rights can be properly protected in such a situation is for the reviewing court to set aside the award based upon the inadmissible evidence and remand for further proceedings.
For these reasons the judgment should be reversed, and cause remanded to the trial court with directions to set aside the entire award and remand for further proceedings.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Martin and Mr. Justice Steinle concur in this dissent.