Court Opinion

ID: 9537506
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:19:18.729593+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:56:44.208334
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent.
The events in the months of May and June, 1975, constitute, I submit, an “accident” within Section 35-1-45, Utah Code Ann., 1953, as amended.
The only medical evidence before the Administrative Law Judge was the medical panel report and testimony of Dr. Wallace E. Hess, its chairman, which clearly and directly related Defendant Mason’s disability of aggravation of a pre-existing spondy-lolysis to the episodes of lifting heavy objects in May and July, 1975. Hence, in my opinion, the Industrial Commission should be affirmed on its findings that the defendant is entitled to compensation. See my dissent in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. Industrial Commission of Utah & Thurman, Utah, 690 P.2d 328, 330-32 (1979). However, consistent with Intermountain Health Care, Inc. v. Ortega & the Industrial Commission, Utah, 562 P.2d 617 (1977) and the consolidated cases of The Paris Co. v. Christensen, Nebo School District v. Cargun, and White v. Pacific Employer’s Insurance Co., Utah, 604 P.2d 478 (1979), this Court should remand to the Industrial Commission for apportionment of compensation benefits pursuant to Section 35-1-69, Utah Code Ann., 1953, as amended, were it to affirm the Commission’s findings on entitlement to compensation.
MAUGHAN, J., concurs in the views expressed in the dissenting opinion of Justice WILKINS.