Court Opinion

ID: 9662902
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:21:42.892142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:42.345264
License: Public Domain

Otis H. Turner, Justice, dissenting. The majority of this court has now traversed the final hurdle and has effectively made any claim arising from a heart condition a compensable claim under the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Law. Stated another way, workers’ compensation insurance has now clearly become health insurance as far as the law relates to heart cases. The only requirement appears to be that the claimant be gainfully employed by an employer covered by the Workers’ Compensation Act. Volumes have been written on both sides of the question on whether heart conditions are job-related. There is no longer any room for debate that under our holdings a disabling heart condition is compensable if it can somehow be related to the claimant’s employment. However, this court has never implied, before today’s holding, that medical expenses arising from underlying symptomology are reimbursable through workers’ compensation, even if the underlying condition in and of itself does not give rise to a compensable claim. The majority chooses to distinguish the only previous Arkansas cases on the subject of aggravation of symptoms, Black v. Riverside Furniture Co., 6 Ark. App. 370, 642 S.W.2d 338 (1982), and Kempner’s v. Hall, 7 Ark. App. 181, 646 S.W.2d 31 (1983) , by finding that the language there relating to compensability of symptomology was “obiter dicta.” Obiter dicta is defined by Black’s Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1979) as “Words of an opinion entirely unnecessary for the decision of the case. . . . A remark made, or opinion expressed, by a judge, in his decision upon a cause, ‘by the way,’ that is, incidentally or collaterally, and not directly upon the question before him, or upon a point not necessarily involved in the determination of the cause, or introduced by way of illustration, or analogy or argument. Such are not binding as precedent.” In Black, the decedent became ill at work and was off for five days while being treated by a physician. He again became ill at work, and the doctor diagnosed the ongoing problems as arteriosclerosis and atrial septal defect and prescribed by-pass surgery. The worker ultimately died from complications of the operation. There were obvious medical expenses in Black, but in affirming the Workers’ Compensation Commission’s decision and denying compensability, Judge Cloninger said: We have a situation in this case which has not been specifically addressed before in this jurisdiction; namely, whether or not aggravation of the symptoms of a preexisting condition is compensable. It is not controverted that Mr. Black had two pre-existing heart conditions. His work aggravated the symptoms of those conditions, consisting of chest pains which is called angina pectoris. Mr. Black’s injury, his death, was the result of bypass .surgery which was conducted to correct the pre-existing heart condition. I do not consider that language to be incidental, collateral, or “entirely unnecessary.” Nor do I believe the language of the Court of Appeals in Kempner’s to be incidental, collateral, or “entirely unnecessary.” In Kempner’s, the employee had several separate episodes of angina while performing his employment duties. The pain became so great that he eventually went to a hospital and thereafter submitted to by-pass surgery. The issue was whether the surgery was elective, undertaken to alleviate pain caused by arteriosclerosis pre-existing the employment. In Kempner’s the Court of Appeals, though finding the heart condition was job-related and compensable, said: In order to understand the argument and the issue of this appeal two medical terms must be defined and the action our courts have previously taken with respect to this type case should be reviewed. These definitions are generally accepted and are supported by the medical testimony in the record before us. “Angina” is defined not as a disease but a symptom of the underlying disease. The angina is the pain resulting from the underlying disease. In appellee’s case, it was a symptom of his arteriosclerosis or hardening of the arteries. We have recently held that aggravation of the symptoms of a pre-existing condition are not compensable. In Black v. Riverside Furniture Co., 6 Ark. App. 370, 642 S.W.2d 338 (1982), we held that where working conditions merely aggravated the angina, the symptoms of the pre-existing, underlying arteriosclerosis, the employer was not liable for medical expenses or other consequences. Obiter dicta, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. In my opinion we are overruling Black and Kempner’s and expanding the application of the workers’ compensation law. I respectfully dissent. Hays, J., joins in this dissent.