Court Opinion

ID: 9736083
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:42:56.221615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:04.232129
License: Public Domain

Carter, J.,
concurring in the result.
The opinion of the majority is deficient in not dealing with the contention that plaintiff is a malingerer. The evidence shows that plaintiff was first employed by the defendant on January 16, 1964, and suffered the injury for which compensation is sought the next day.
On the first day of the trial plaintiff was asked to raise his right arm and he was able to lift it to a horizontal position. The second day of the trial in response to a similar question he stated: “I have said always that I can not raise my right arm.” Dr. L. E. Daniels testified that from his examination he found that plaintiff was malingering. Dr. Ted E. Riddell wrote to plaintiff’s attorney on October 30, 1964, that plaintiff came to his office on that day and “put on quite an act.” Plaintiff testified that Dr. Riddell told him at one time that he was “playing sick.” Dr. Riddell denies making such a statement. Dr. Riddell also testified: “Well, he always seemed a little stiffer when he was in the office than when he was outside.” Dr. Ulysses Schutzer testified: “* * * but I am reasonably certain that there must be an element of that particular feature which we have described as malingering or exploiting.”
Aurora Amaya testified to taking plaintiff home from *614the first hearing before the compensation court and plaintiff then said: “He said that he was not sick; he said he was just going to get money out of the company because the company had a lot of- money and he wants to give money and everything to. his family, you know, because that is the only way that he was — that he can give his family everything that they need.” 'In 1963, plaintiff told his son-in-law in the course of a conversation: “Well, the subject came about me, that I worked everyday and this time of the year I put in 15, 16 hours a day, so he said that he wasn’t figuring on working any more, if he could pull some kind of a stunt or trick where he could get enough so he wouldn’t have to work for a while.” There was evidence by persons who observed him driving his truck and 'that he ■ was able to and did move his arms and head in a normal manner, which was inconsistent with his testimony.
Plaintiff, at the time of the accident, was pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with six 100-pound sacks of beans into a boxcar. He fell from the plank between the platform and the boxcar a distance of 6 feet. He struck his head, causing a 2-inch gash, and three sacks of beans fell on his neck and head. He suffered no broken bones and asserts only that he has pain in the back of his neck and some injury to his right arm.
This evidence when considered together indicates rather plainly that plaintiff was contemplating an injury for mercenary purposes; that he obtained employment with defendant and had his accident the very next day; and that he told Aurora Amaya that he was not ill but was only after money. This evidence, plus the evidence of the doctors herein recited, shows rather conclusively that plaintiff’s claim was fraudulent.
• This evidencé is excused by the court’s opinion on the ground of plaintiff’s ignorance and inability to perpetrate such a scheme. That the plaintiff was • ignorant cannot'be doubted'ás no intelligent' person 'wotild *615brazenly announce the purpose of his scheme both before and after the accident. I submit that a physician in giving an expert opinion under such circumstances should not assume that his patient was honest and should confine his evidence to physical abnormalities of which there were none other than the 2-inch gash on the head. In'my opinion the. plaintiff was suffering. from a mind bent on fraud and not from a traumatic neurosis. '.
I submit that fraud and evil intent are hidden in the recesses of the mind and are very difficult of ascertainment, but where, as here, the evidence shows such an intent before and after the accident, plus supporting findings by three physicians, the employer is entitled to protection against such unconscionable conduct.
■ The district court- affirmed an award for-'a period of temporary total- disability, medical expenses, and for 5' percent permanent ■ partial disability, Plaintiff appealed. Defendant did not cross-appeal and in effect asks for an affirmance. Under the state of the record before us, the result is correct. It is my view that the affirmance should rest on a finding of fraud and the malingering of the plaintiff rather than the unsatisfactory and conflicting evidence of the medical experts. Whether or not the plaintiff was a malingerer or the victim of neurosis involves the determination of his mental state by fine line of demarcation. The evidence of disabling neurosis is very conflicting and the evidence that it was the result of the specific accident is even more so. As I view the record, the claim is fraudulent and the plaintiff a malingerer. The primary basis of the affirmance should rest on these grounds.-
Brower, J., joins in the concurring opinion.