Court Opinion

ID: 9546500
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:30:40.64938+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:31.826726
License: Public Domain

WREN, Judge
(dissenting).
I do not agree. The majority’s opinion is predicated on finding that genuine fear on the part of the claimant justifies a refusal to undergo surgery.
In my opinion, this conclusion can find no support in either the statutes or case law. The test as to reasonable refusal is. an objective rather than a subjective one. A.R.S. § 23-1026(E) states in pertinent part:
“[T]he commission may reduce or suspend the compensation of an employee . who refuses to submit to medical or surgical treatment reasonably necessary to promote his recovery.” (Emphasis supplied).
Also, A.R.S. § 23-1027 provides:
“No compensation shall be payable for the . . . disability of an employee . insofar as his disability may be aggravated, caused or continued by an unreasonable refusal ... to submit to reasonable surgical treatment . . . .” (Emphasis supplied).
The key words in these statutes relate to the reasonableness of the recommended surgical treatment, not the reasonableness of a claimant’s fear. Fear of surgery is simply not a ground for refusal.
Two orthopedic surgeons recommended the surgical treatment as both reasonable and necessary for any improvement. There was no medical evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, it was established that the proposed surgery provided an eighty to eighty-five percent chance of improvement. It was further established that the only risk to life would be that associated with the administration of a general anesthetic. Unless we are to hold that every operation involving general anesthesia may be refused by a claimant, Monday v. Concho Sands, cited in the majority opinion, is not in point. In fact, Professor Larson, after quoting the same language from the Oklahoma court, made the following comment in the next paragraph:
“On the other hand, refusal of surgery cannot be deemed reasonable when the only reason shown for the refusal is the claimant’s subjective fear of the operation, or of anesthesia, unless that fear itself has some substantial basis in the claimant’s experience.” 1 A. Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law § 13.22.
*223Moreover, as stated in Hays v. Industrial Commission, 138 Col. 334, 333 P.2d 617 (1958):
“There was no suggestion that such operation (back surgery) might result fatally except that no medical expert can or will say that one undergoing major surgery under general anesthetic will survive anymore than one in perfect health can be assured when he awakens in the morning that he will be on this earth by nightfall.” 138 Col. at 337, 333 P.2d at 618.
I submit that claimant’s refusal here, assertedly based on fear and the fact that he could not be guaranteed a one-hundred percent recovery and the ability to return to the same work as a boilermaker, was wholly unreasonable.
I would set aside the award.