Court Opinion

ID: 9514377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:49:03.94685+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:16.735925
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(dissenting).
[¶ 25] I agree with the trial court that there was substantial evidence that Helm’s employment was a contributing factor to his heart attack and eventual death. Although there was some evidence to support the agency’s findings to the contrary, it was not substantial in comparison. Therefore, the agency’s findings of fact that Helm’s employment was not a contributing factor to his heart attack and death were incorrect requiring reversal. The majority’s position that we are bound by an agency’s decision whenever it is based on an expert’s opinion, notwithstanding substantial facts and other expert opinions to the contrary* is unacceptable under these circumstances.

 Dr. Abrahams, who treated Helms, testified that his heavy exertion at work was a contributing factor to the progression of the heart attack. Dr. Willoughby, who also treated Helms, noted that based on bis reading of cardiac enzyme tests, the “initial heart damage occurred probably while he was working on [the] truck, or shortly thereafter.” In his opinion, the event which triggered the heart attack occurred in the early morning hours of January 23, 1992. Dr. Schechter, a cardiac surgeon and an expert witness for the claimant, concluded Helms' heart attack was “precipitated by his work.”