Court Opinion

ID: 9742709
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:18:33.233465+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:35.108779
License: Public Domain

PRESIDING JUSTICE WEBBER, dissenting: I respectfully dissent from the majority. Zupan claimed to have contracted asbestosis, nothing else, yet every diagnosis, including that of Dr. Mohyuddin, was that of pulmonary fibrosis. Dr. Mohyuddin, claimant’s own physician, stated that there are many causes for the latter complaint and one cannot say what particularly caused it. It is noteworthy that the claimant was retired in 1973 and first saw Dr. Mohyuddin in 1976. At that time there was no mention of asbestos. Asbestos came into the picture when the claimant again saw the doctor in 1978 and at that time, five years after his termination with the employer, maintained that he had been exposed to asbestos. Undoubtedly, based on this declaration, any physician would say that a “good cause and relationship” existed. But is still remains that we have only claimant’s own self-serving statement. He was unable to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that asbestos existed in his workplace. The Commission is the proper forum to resolve such an evidentiary question, and it did so adversely to the claimant. I can find no basis upon which to overturn that finding. The five affidavits were of some relevancy, but they are not persuasive. Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co. v. Industrial Com. (1965), 33 Ill. 2d 268, 211 N.E.2d 276, cited in the majority opinion is of no assistance here. It requires that the claimant show an exposure at work in a greater degree and in a different manner from the public generally in order to convert an ordinary disease of life to an occupational disease. As mentioned above, this claimant was unable to satisfy his evidentiary burden in that respect. The Commission properly ruled, in my opinion, that the claimant suffered from an ordinary disease of life. Under the statute in effect at the time of claimant’s employment, such diseases were excluded from compensation with certain exceptions, including asbestosis. As with the Commission, it is my opinion that claimant did not establish a case of asbestosis. It stands the Act on its head to hold, as the majority does, that because a claimant is suffering from something he may be compensated by semantic gymnastics. Claimant’s medical proof failed and this is enough to doom his case, as it should. I would reverse the circuit court and affirm the Commission. Justice Lindberg joins me in this dissent.