Court Opinion

ID: 9865042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 16:21:27.964817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:36:58.242242
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Bouck,
dissenting.
1. Under the Workmen’s Compensation Act of Colorado (’35 C. S. A., Volume 3, pages 1309-1391, § §280-429) the Industrial Commission is the sole fact-finding body in compensation cases. If the commission fails in any instance or in any respect to act on an issue of fact the case must be sent back for its further consideration either upon the facts then before it or with the aid of a further hearing. Section 381, page 1371 ibid. [C. L. 1921, Sec. 4476], is clear: “If upon trial of such action [that is, one brought in the district court under section 378, page 1370, by any person in interest who is dissatisfied with a finding, order or award of the Industrial Commission] it shall appear that * * * the commission * * * has for any reason, not in fact heard and determined the issues raised, the court shall, before proceeding to render judgment, unless the parties to such action stipulate to the contrary, transmit to the commission a full statement of such issue or issues not adequately considered, and shall stay further proceedings in such action until such issues are heard by the commission and returned to said court.”
Our court’s solicitude to enforce the above provision and to avoid judicial interference with the commission’s exclusive fact-finding function is rather strikingly revealed in the case of Black Diamond Fuel Co. v. Frank, 99 *172Colo. 528, 64 P. (2d) 797, where the writer, in a dissenting opinion, and the author of the present majority opinion, in a partially dissenting opinion, shared and expressed the belief that the majority there were actually making even the universally recognized principle of “the law of the case” improperly yield to such solicitude.
The .binding nature of the 'commission’s fact-findings has been declared by this court times without number. See: Industrial Com. v. Dorchak, 97 Colo. 142, 47 P. (2d) 396; United States Co. v. Industrial Com., 96 Colo. 571, 45 P. (2d) 895; Tavenor v. Indemnity Co.,, 84 Colo. 521, 272 Pac. 3; Ellermann v. Industrial Com., 73 Colo. 20, 213 Pac. 120; Industrial Commission v. Fanganiello, 72 Colo. 140, 209 Pac. 803; Weaver v. Industrial Com., 69 Colo. 507, 194 Pac. 941; and the numerous authorities cited in those cases.
In the Ellermann case, supra, which in some respects bears a striking resemblance to the case at bar, Mr. Justice Burke declared: “If death was due to ‘over-exertion’ ‘arising out of’ the employment and would not have occurred save for such employment, then the ‘over-exertion’was an‘accident.’ * # * Much as we regret the necessity, it therefore becomes absolutely essential that this cause be remanded to the district court with directions to return it to.the commission for additional findings of fact, and that the commission amend its findings by determining whether this death was due to over-exertion.”
2. The majority opinion herein does not remand the case for further fact findings by the commission. Instead, it supersedes the commission altogether, even-as the trial court did, by a finding of its own that there was overexertion, and an unqualified command to the commission to make an award of compensation. The ground assigned for so doing is this: “An erroneous finding that there is no .evidence of exertion, when the record discloses such evidence, is not equivalent to a finding that *173there was no exertion.” In support of this reasoning a quotation is given from United States Co. v. Industrial Com., supra, as follows: “What constitutes evidence is a question of law. ’ ’ Assuming all this to be true, it necessarily follows that the proper remedy is to send the case back to the commission as fact-finding body to make a finding one way or the other on what this court says is evidence of exertion. This brings me to the concrete matter of inquiring what the evidence in question was.
3. Time will not permit me to supplement the statement of fact given in the majority opinion or to analyze the evidence as a whole. No direct evidence of unusual or any exertion is in the record. The only evidence that could possibly be considered even circumstantial evidence is given by the witness Grindling.* There is not even circumstantial evidence to prove that if there was overexertion it was the cause of death. According to some of the medical witnesses the death may have been due to purely natural causes, including a patent foramen ovale, which is clearly shown to have been a congenital condition in Wetz’s heart. The autopsy physician, indeed, cóntradicts himself in a material matter: he testified he made no microscopic examination of the heart muscle, but his unverified autopsy report says that he did. The weight of his expert opinion, based upon the same autopsy report on which the other and opposite expert opinions were based, is solely for the fact-finding body to determine, not for the court. Grindling’s testimony cannot lawfully constitute conclusive evidence that there was overexertion and that it must necessarily have caused the dilatation of the deceased’s heart. To accomplish that, we must — contrary to fact — say the only *174inference to be drawn is that the employee did crank the tractor and did overexert himself in so doing. Which of two or more inferences shall be drawn is a question for the fact-finder. But even suppose the witness had testified that he actually saw the cranking and the alleged overexertion. If a court must accept at face value the evidence of a surviving witness as to what occurred when he and a person since deceased were the only ones present, then we may discard all the rules of evidence and say that the fact-finding body cannot exercise the customary power of judging as to the credibility of a witness and cannot, if it sees fit, reject what such body considers untruthful evidence. Then the most brutal murderer, claiming the privilege of not taking the witness stand, would entitle himself to a directed verdict of not guilty by successfully planning to kill if and when a per juring crony has been smuggled in as the only other living eyewitness. The latter’s story could thus be made binding upon jurors who as fact-finders might wholly disbelieve him. Surely such is not the law.
It sufficiently appears from the foregoing that I am constrained to dissent because of the failure of the court to remand the case to the district court with directions to the commission to make proper findings and report them back to that court.
Mr. Justice Holland concurs in this opinion.

Note. Gindling testified: “He was standing right in front of the Eordson. He had one hand on the Eordson. I don’t know whether he was cranking it or whether he was going to crank it or just got through, or what. I was in a hurry.” Then: “Q. Would you say in observing Mr. Wetz that he was in the position they stand in when they crank a truck? A. Yes.” Later: “I know he was leaning on the radiator like that (illustrating) .” Can this court say what corroboration or impeachment lay in that dramatization as testimony before the referee?