Court Opinion

ID: 9753181
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:02:44.378617+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:31.833074
License: Public Domain

WERNICK, Justice
(concurring).
I agree with the result reached, and the essentials of the analysis employed, in the Opinion for the Court. I think it beneficial, however, that I offer a supplemental clarification of my views.
As to the compensability of the accident, the present decision is a striking concrete illustration of the difference in result which can be reached because of the difference in theory and practical operation between: (1) a “rebuttable presumption” which assists the petitioner in meeting the ultimate burden of proof to establish a compensable accident, and which functions with the legal effect accorded under the approach of Hinds v. John Hancock Ins. Co., 155 Me. 349, 155 A.2d 721 (1959), and (2) an affirmative defense by which the ultimate burden of proof is taken from the petitioner and is placed upon the employer and insurance carrier to negate the existence of the elements of a compensable claim.
In the present instance the Commissioner’s determination against the petitioner is sustained, in part, on an analysis regarding the position of the deceased employee, Metcalf, atop the bales that (1)
“The Commissioner could properly infer that a position on top of bales stacked as these were was a comparatively unsafe location in which to await the return of the leadman whereas the floor of the warehouse was a reasonably safe place in which to spend the waiting period”;
and (2) petitioner had failed to sustain the ultimate burden of proof reposing upon her to show, by a fair preponderance of the evidence, that this increase in the qualitative risks of danger to the deceased em-. ployee, Metcalf, was causationally related to his employment.
Had the ultimate burden of proof been cast, however, as an incident of an affirmative defense, upon the employer and insurance carrier to establish the absence of any causational relationship between the qualitatively increased hazards to the deceased employee, Metcalf, and the employment, a decision in this case that a com-pensable accident had occurred would, in my judgment, have been required.
There was a lack of evidence which could indicate directly, affirmatively and specifically the purpose for which Mr. *371Metcalf ascended to the top of the bales or the exact nature of what Mr. Metcalf was doing while he was atop the bales. The evidence adduced was negative only, to the effect that it was not known why Metcalf went to the top of the bales, it was not known what he was doing on the bales and it was not known that there were any tasks or duties connected with his employment which were responsible for his presence, or conduct, upon the bales.
Thus, were the ultimate burden of proof upon the employer and insurance carrier to prove by a fair preponderance of the evidence that on the particular occasion in question there was, in ultimate fact, an entire absence of any employment reason for Mr. Metcalf to have been on top of the bales, the negative evidence which exists in this case would have been insufficient to meet the requisites of such ultimate burden of proof.
It eventuates, therefore, that the petitioner’s claim is here defeated, in one aspect, solely because the Legislature in 39 M.R.S.A. § 64 — A utilized the words “rebut-table presumption” and thereby allowed the ultimate burden of proof to establish the elements of a compensable claim to remain upon the petitioner and the Hinds “rebut-table presumption” technique to govern. Furthermore, this result is reached in spite of the explicit provisions in 39 M.R.S.A. § 92 mandating a liberal interpretation of the Workmen’s Compensation Act, “with a view to carrying out its general purpose”, —a purpose characterized by this Court in Estabrook v. Steward Read Company, 129 Me. 178, 151 A. 141 (1930) to be a “general humanitarian purpose” (p. 183, 151 A. 141) and in White v. Eastern Manufacturing Co., 120 Me. 62, 69, 112 A. 841 (1921), and as quoted in Riley v. Oxford Paper Company et al., 149 Me. 418, 424, 103 A.2d 111 (1954), to be “beneficent.”
Much as this result disturbs me, I must, nevertheless, approve it. I cannot avoid the conclusion that the Court would exceed its judicial function and encroach upon the legislative domain were it, in the present instance, to interpret the “rebuttable presumption” language of 39 M.R.S.A. § 64— A, — and which first appeared in 1965 (P. L.1965, Chapter 408, § 7, effective November 30, 1965) — to establish a legislative change in the ultimate burden of proof from the petitioner to the employer and insurance carrier. Once this Court had, in 1959, presented its comprehensive analysis and decision in Hinds v. John Hancock, supra, the words, “rebuttable presumption”, became words of art. By virtue of Hinds the concept of a “rebuttable presumption” was clearly and definitively established to import, as a generalized legal principle, a procedural instrumentality to assist the party upon whom is imposed the ultimate burden of proof on an issue rather than one which effects a transfer of the ultimate burden of proof to the opposite party.
39 M.R.S.A. § 64-A was enacted after sufficient time had elapsed for Hinds to have become well known in the jurisprudence of Maine. Other legislatures of Maine, even prior to the time Hinds had been decided, had already revealed in other contexts involving tort claims relating to a deceased person (e. g., R.S. of Maine 1954, Chapter 113, § 50, reaffirming principles first established by the Legislature in 1913 in P.L. 1913, Chapter 27), that a clear and definitive technique was known by which, when it was intended that an affirmative defense be created, together with a transfer of the ultimate burden of proof, such objective could be indisputably accomplished.1 In light of these facts the only reasonably fair interpretation open to a Court which seeks to avoid judicial legislation is the one adopted by the Opinion of the Court in the present case — that the ultimate burden of proof had remained upon the petitioner, as it generally is in workmen’s compensation claims, because 39 M. *372R.S.A. § 64-A had failed to create an affirmative defense placing the ultimate burden of proof upon the employer and insurance carrier.
If it had been the intention of the Legislature which enacted 39 M.R.S.A. § 64-A to accomplish such a transfer of the ultimate burden of proof, the decision of this case will serve notice that legislative use of the words “rebuttable presumption” without more, — and while Hinds v. John Hancock, supra, remains the law of Maine, —might well be inadequate. To effectuate such purpose, and to eliminate all doubts, the Legislature should avoid reliance upon the words “rebuttable presumption” and should state plainly and explicitly that it is intending to change the ultimate burden of proof by creating an affirmative defense to be borne by the employer and the insurance carrier.

. For a more comprehensive analysis of this historical development in relation to the remedy for wrongful death, see Parker v. Hohman, Me., 250 A.2d 698, 700, 701 (1969).