Court Opinion

ID: 9586890
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:16:15.609616+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:54.829304
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring specially.
I write separately to suggest that the responsibility of attributing Swanson’s var*323ious symptoms to her industrial accident, or, to her pre-existing psychological conditions, or, to the non-industrial car accident was a very unusual and difficult task indeed. Swanson’s attorney has argued here most persuasively that her psychological problems at the least were aggravated by her industrial accident and therefore, further psychological treatment was compensable.
It is my belief that in such circumstances as are here present the Industrial Commission would do well to on its own motion convene an independent panel of experts charged with the duty to examine the testimony, to weigh the causative factors, and assign a percentage to each of them. In essence this panel would serve the function very much like that of a jury in other civil cases. Such a procedure would be in keeping with the legislative directive of Idaho Code Annotated § 43-1404 (superseded): “The board, or member of the board to whom the matter has been assigned, shall make such inquiries and investigations as shall be deemed necessary.”
This same provision was carried forward in the 1971 recodification of the worker’s compensation law: Idaho Code § 72-714(3): “The commission, or member thereof, or a hearing officer, referee or examiner, to whom the matter has been assigned, shall make such inquiries and investigations as may be deemed necessary.”
This important provision of worker’s compensation law was last recognized, discussed and applied in the much cited case of Pierstorff v. Gray’s Auto Shop, 58 Idaho 438, 74 P.2d 171 (1937), over a half-century ago. Since then it has laid dormant and appears to have gone unmentioned in Commission proceedings and in this Court’s opinions reviewing Commission proceedings.
In Pierstorff a unanimous Court wrote as follows:
It appears from the record that at about 7 o’clock in the evening of October 22, 1935, and just shortly before it is claimed the accident occurred, respondent and his wife drove in the family automobile from their home in Lewiston, downtown, and, in passing the shop of respondent’s employer, they noticed a light and stopped and respondent went in where he found V.A. Westfall, a fellow employee. It also appears that Westfall testified in behalf of respondent at the hearing before the board, but it does not appear either on direct or cross examination that Westfall was asked whether respondent’s eye was, or was not, injured when claimant first entered the shop. And it further appears from the record that respondent’s wife also testified in his behalf at the hearing, but that she was not asked either on direct or cross examination whether her husband’s eye was, or was not, injured before their arrival at the shop on the evening of October 22d. No doubt counsel for the respective parties overlooked inquiring into the matter. The situation thus presented makes it most fitting to point out that by the enactment of the Workmen’s Compensation Act the legislature intended to give injured workmen a speedy, summary, and simple remedy for the recovery of compensation in all cases coming within its provisions, that strict rules of procedure are not required, and that in every case where ‘compensation is not settled by agreement’ (sec. 43-1403, I.C.A.) [I.C. § 72-713], ‘the Board, or the member of the Board to whom the matter has been assigned, shall make such inquiries and investigations as shall be deemed necessary____’ (gee. 43-1404, I.C.A.) [I.C. § 72-714(3)] and, furthermore, where, as here, no agreement for the payment of compensation is reached, and a hearing is had, and counsel for the respective parties overlook inquiring into a matter as important and material to a fair and just termination of the controversy as that above-mentioned, it becomes the duty of the board to make full and exhaustive inquiry (Feuling v. Farmers’ Co-operative Ditch Co., 54 Ida. 326, 334, 31 Pac.(2d) 683 [1934]), and to that end the board may not only examine any competent witness at the conclusion of his direct and cross examination upon all matters material and relevant to any issue, but it may also subpoena *324and examine other competent witnesses.
The board is already (without our suggestion) fully cognizant of its powers, under the statute, to become active in investigating these cases, and of the act that it is not required to remain merely passive and listen only to the evidence elicited by the parties or their counsel. It must be constantly kept in mind that it (the board) is an administrative and fact-finding body, exercising special judicial functions (In re Bones, 48 Ida. 85, 94, 280 Pac. 223 [1969]; Feuling v. Farmers’ Co-operative Ditch Co., supra), and, as such, it is its duty to ascertain and produce, or cause to be produced, all the available competent and material evidence concerning any and all claims presented to it for consideration and allowance.
Pierstorff v. Gray’s Auto Shop, 58 Idaho 438, 449-51, 74 P.2d 171, 176-77 (1937) (emphasis in original).
I list myself as concurring because Justice Johnson’s opinion is well written, discusses sufficiently the issues presented, and refers to pertinent authority. In short, I believe the conclusion to affirm is almost inevitable. However, I am not as comfortable with that conclusion as I would prefer to be. The claimant in this case is as much the illstarred worker as Justice Donaldson portrayed the claimant in Lyons v. I.S.I.F., 98 Idaho 403, 565 P.2d 1360 (1977). As Justice Johnson points out before the two successive accidents which physically injured her, she was already suffering from severe psychological problems by reason of her having left one style of life in Japan to take up another entirely different style in this county — undoubtedly added to by marriage, motherhood, and laboring at hard work in order to help provide for the family. Then within a period of less than forty days she suffered two severe head injuries — the first occasion at work, and the second while a passenger in an automobile. There is no doubting on reading the medical reports that she was thereafter experiencing severe pain, but as to the cause thereof, the medical profession could not agree.
The doctors were in more disagreement here than in most cases, which is understandable in view of the complexity of problems. It is inconceivable that any one doctor could say for certain that her pre-existing psychological problems were not exacerbated by having her head struck hard by a steel door; nor could any one doctor be expected to say for certain that her pre-existing psychological problems were not exacerbated by getting another severe blow to the head only thirty-eight days later in the automobile accident; nor could any one doctor be expected to say for certain that the injury to her head caused by the falling steel door was not aggravated or compounded by the second head injury incurred in the automobile collision into the guard rail. Nor could a doctor be expected to say for certain that the combined effect of two severe head injuries could be evaluated separately from each other, and that each and/or both could be evaluated disjunctively from her pre-existing psychological condition.
Much is made of Dr. Kennedy’s testimony because whatever opinion he might express was not that of a defense-hired doctor, but rather claimant’s own treating doctor, i.e., if his testimony did not sustain her complaints, ergo and a fortiori, they were unjustifiably made and of no weight.
Dr. Kennedy, at his deposition taken by surety, admitted to having “a definite diagnosis as to what her problem was” when he diagnosed her initial head injury caused by the steel door. That diagnosis was that she “suffered strain of the neck muscles, the cervical paraspinal muscles, ... resulting in neck pain and headaches.” Kennedy Deposition, p. 14-15. However, Dr. Kennedy did not even pretend to be all that definite when asked if her ongoing symptoms after the automobile accident were related to the steel door injury or the auto collision injury. Here his answers were less than forthright, but rather couched in equivocating phrases such as, “To the best of my knowledge," and “from that point of view,” and “From my point of view, from the knowledge and information that I have.” In addition, Dr. Kennedy in an*325swering did not himself say that he had an opinion as to the cause of her ongoing symptoms which opinion was to a medical probability. Defense counsel in interrogating him used the words, “an opinion with medical probability,” only to ask if the doctor had any opinions. The doctor, however, did not use that language in making his responses.
This is not stated as being critical of Dr. Kennedy, but to illustrate the point that this was not the ordinary run of the mill case, but presents the circumstance where the claimant has a well-documented history of psychological problems1 which predated the two separate but short-spaced accidental injuries to the frontal portion of her head.
Dr. Kennedy’s testimony on direct examination was in answer to questions put to him by counsel for the party propounding him as a witness, namely the surety.
A. She was readmitted to the hospital on 2-15-81 by Dr. Lansche, one of my partners, who saw her in my absence. I then saw her in the hospital I believe it was the next day.
Q. And what were the complaints for which she was being hospitalized and treated?
A. She had been involved in an automobile accident and had been evidently thrown forward, striking her head against the windshield. She had also bruised her right knee and hand. She was seen in the emergency room and reported a severe frontal headache. She was evaluated by Dr. Lansche who felt that this was most likely cervical muscle strain from the trauma and admitted to the hospital. I then saw her I believe it was the next day.
Q. Upon your return or your seeing her in the hospital, did you assume her care?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And you are the one who made the decision as to when to release her?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. What was your diagnosis at the time she was released?
A. I felt that she had acute cervical strain due to the automobile accident, which reinjured or exacerbated her previous cervical strain from the first admission. In addition she had multiple abrasions.
Kennedy Deposition, p. 8-10 (emphasis added). The underscored language, it may be noted, was the doctor’s own choice of words. Exacerbate is a word of common usage in compensation cases, and it is not a word of many definitions. According to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary it means to increase in severity. No dictionary has been found which suggests “recurrence” as an accepted meaning. Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary (24th ed. 1965), includes “exacerbation” and defines it tersely as “increase in the severity of any symptoms or disease.” Dr. Kennedy’s statement that the automobile collision in his opinion exacerbated the physical injuries which claimant received when struck by the steel door is without doubt the single most important item of evidence in the record. It is another reason why it is not easy to feel entirely comfortable in joining an opinion which affirms the Commission’s decision.
Commissioner Defenbach conducted the hearing and thereafter read the depositions of doctors Kennedy, Henson, and Whitenack, and a fourth deposition of Craig Patterson, an officer of the Idaho State Patrol. Commissioner Defenbach also considered medical reports and other documentary exhibits. The written decision prepared by Commissioner Defenbach is extremely thorough as to content and well-drafted and acknowledges Dr. Kennedy’s choice of words as earlier mentioned: “Dr. Kennedy’s impression at the time of discharging the claimant was an acute cervical strain secondary to the motor vehicle accident and an exacerbation of the claimant’s [pri- or existing] cervical sprain ...” Finding No. VI. The bracketed words are included *326because Commissioner Defenbach of a necessity had to be referring to the prior cervical injury in order for there to be some symptom to exacerbate.
The prepared findings recounted the opinions of the doctors with regard to claimant’s history, both as to the accident, resultant sicknesses, and, the prior psychological and/or psychiatric history, and noting also that “The Commissioner finds particularly persuasive the opinion of Dr. Kennedy,” the finding was made that “the opinions of Dr. Hansen and Dr. Powell to be more persuasive than the opinion of Dr. Whitenack with respect to the cause of the claimant’s complaint and the relationship of her complaint to the industrial accident.” Finding XIV. Finding XIII acknowledged that “Dr. Whitenack’s opinion (was) that the claimant’s condition was caused by the industrial accident ... that the claimant had encountered cultural differences in coming to the United States from Japan ... which created certain emotional and adjustment issues which also may be a factor ... that these factors had been combined with the physical injury to produce the claimant’s continuing problems.”
As stated at the outset, it is indeed a complex case, but the number and quality of defense experts made the outcome perhaps inevitable. Only Dr. Whitenack favored the claimant. Yet, in this bizarre set of circumstances, it does not seem at all improbable that he may have been correct in his deductions. To separate the two almost identical physical injuries, one coming directly on the heels of the other, coupled with occurring to a woman so afflicted emotionally, is at best difficult, if not impossible.
One would feel more comfortable if the extremely well-qualified experts brought into the arena had entered as non-partisan participants summonsed in by the Commission to aid it in this highly unusual case. There is a sentiment among the trial attorneys that it is inherently unfair for the defense employers and sureties to use panels of experts in compensation cases. An improvement in the system would restrict the number of experts available to the parties, and when the Commission desires independent expert opinion testimony, then to bring in such number of experts as the Commission may determine.

. Dr. Kennedy, in one of the many clinical notes made a part of his deposition, suggested that she should see a psychiatrist.