Court Opinion

ID: 9790275
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:49:54.44858+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:46:50.348998
License: Public Domain

Brachtenbach, C.J.
(dissenting) — I concur with the *590majority's holding regarding the rule of law. However, I cannot agree with the majority's holding that petitioner is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The majority does not state at what procedural stage this holding as a matter of law should have been made. It might have been so held on (1) a summary judgment motion, or (2) on motion for a directed verdict or (3) on a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The majority does not discuss the test to be applied thereto.
At best the record on appeal is inadequate. Petitioner claims he was entitled to a summary judgment. No such motion is in the clerk's papers. From the verbatim report of proceedings it appears that such a motion was denied prior to trial. Petitioner's oral motion for summary judgment made at the beginning of the trial did not comply with CR 56.
Petitioner moved for a directed verdict on the grounds stated in the motion for summary judgment, but that does not provide the specificity required by CR 50(a). Nothing further was discussed on the record. After the verdict, the petitioner moved for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
Despite the difficulties inherent in the record, we must examine each of these motions if we are to consider holding for petitioner as a matter of law. Turning to those procedural steps where the court might have ruled as a matter of law, we must first evaluate the motion for summary judgment. The test is whether there was a genuine issue as to a material fact. LaPlante v. State, 85 Wn.2d 154, 531 P.2d 299 (1975). Lacking the motion and memorandum, it is difficult to determine upon what petitioner relied to meet that test. A subsequent review of the record will illuminate this inquiry.
Petitioner was entitled to a directed verdict only if, viewing "the evidence and all reasonable inferences therefrom in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party. . . . there is no evidence or reasonable inference therefrom against the contention of the moving party." (Citations *591omitted.) Fenimore v. Donald M. Drake Constr. Co., 87 Wn.2d 85, 93, 549 P.2d 483 (1976). Presumably the entire record of the proceedings of the board of appeals was before the jury but the record of proceedings does not show that; again a later review of the record will be helpful.
Finally, petitioner was entitled to a judgment notwithstanding the verdict only if the court can say as a matter of law that there is neither evidence nor reasonable inference from the evidence to sustain the verdict. It requires that evidence be interpreted more strongly against the moving party. Scobba v. Seattle, 31 Wn.2d 685, 198 P.2d 805 (1948).
Normally these three motions would have potentially different components because of the different stages of trial at which they are made. As noted, we lack the specificity required for both the summary judgment and directed verdict motions, but assume that petitioner relied upon the record before the board of appeals.
To judge the propriety of granting any of petitioner's motions, it is necessary to evaluate the proceedings before the board of appeals. That record reveals a good deal more than quoted by the majority. Petitioner had a preexisting unstable low back condition and a history of making complaints about it at work. In August, about 6 weeks before the bending-over incident, he had such a severe lumbo-sacral back pain, unrelated to work, that he sought emergency treatment at a hospital. His doctor detected a narrowing of a vertebral disk space at that time. The condition was severe enough that the physician certified that petitioner was totally and continuously disabled and unable to work from August 25 to September 1. Two weeks before the bending-over incident, he was still under the doctor's care for this condition.
The orthopedic surgeon testified that when he saw petitioner after the incident at work, his complaints were consistent with those existing before the bending-over event. The doctor said "it was all the same." While this doctor believed the pain was more severe after the October inci*592dent, he was not sure whether the condition of petitioner's low back was worse or more severe than before the incident. Another doctor said that when petitioner bent over, "this thing went again." After the work incident, petitioner had been improving to the extent that he was expected to return to work, without surgery, until the condition was aggravated by nonwork-related activity.
The difficulty with the testimony relied upon by the majority is that neither the questions nor the answers are sufficiently precise or comprehensive to permit a holding as a matter of law. One answer only concludes that the bending over aggravated the underlying condition. The other question asked was whether the treated low back condition was causally related to the bending. The doctor answered that' it was related, implying that it was not causally related. Together, these answers come nowhere close to proving all four required elements of a statutory "injury": a sudden and tangible happening, of a traumatic nature, producing an immediate and prompt result and occurring from without.
Taking all these factors into account, we cannot hold that there was no material issue as to a material fact, or no evidence or reasonable inference against petitioner, or no evidence or reasonable inference to support the verdict. In light of the mandate to interpret evidence in favor of the nonmoving party in this context, there was sufficient evidence or reasonable inference that the bending-over incident did not meet all the elements of an RCW 51.08.100 "injury". Therefore, while the medical evidence might be sufficient to support a verdict for the claimant, it certainly was not conclusive enough to mandate a holding as a matter of law. I would remand the matter to the Superior Court for retrial.
Stafford, Utter, and Hicks, JJ., concur with Brach-TENBACH, C.J.
*593Reconsideration denied July 10,1981.