Court Opinion

ID: 9704487
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:37:09.147218+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:02.883531
License: Public Domain

M. J. Kelly, J.
(dissenting). This is a good example of a workmen’s compensation imbroglio.
The defendant’s doctor’s deposition (Melvin A. Lester) was taken January 30, 1973. At that deposition, the plaintiffs attorney well and thoroughly preserved for review, objections on the admission of the X-ray report:
"Mr. Meckler (Plaintiff's attorney): Who is this x-ray report made by doctor?
"A. Dr. William F. Wanger.
"Mr. Meckler: Well, then I will object to the doctor’s testimony unless he had the x-rays and he was testifying himself as opposed to hearsay from the report of Dr. Wanger.
"Q. (By Mr. Wallace) [Defendant’s attorney]: Doctor, did you use Dr. Wanger’s x-ray report in writing your report and in coming to your final diagnosis with regard to Mr. Rentz?
"A. Yes.
"Mr. Wallace: Okay, your objection has been noted on the record counsel.
"Mr. Meckler: Then I would have to object to the doctor’s testimony as it is based on hearsay according to his own testimony.
"Mr. Wallace: All Right. Your objection has been noted.”
The first mention of enlarged heart immediately follows the above quoted excerpt.
On March 13, 1973, when the testimony before the referee and all depositions had been concluded, Dr. Lester’s deposition was admitted by the referee "subject to the objections contained therein”. At the same time exhibits 2, 3 and 4 which were hospital records from different hospitals were also *255admitted, and these were admitted "under the Business Entry Statute”. There was never any dialogue concerning business entry admissibility on the deposition objections to Dr. Lester’s testimony. There was never any ruling, either by the refereé or by the appeal board.
After receiving the defendant’s brief, the plaintiff, on or about March 26, 1975, filed with the Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board, a motion to strike certain portions of defendant’s brief on the grounds they were in violation of the business entry rule and not properly in evidence before the appeal board. One of the paragraphs objected to was the paragraph containing Dr. Lester’s testimony about an enlarged heart. Instead of hearing the motion, the appeal board wrote plaintiff’s attorney a letter which I quote:
"We are in receipt of your recently filed motion in the above captioned matter.
"Rather than acting upon same at the present time, the matter will be referred to the panel of Board members to whom this case is eventually assigned. If it is found that defendant is predicating arguments on material not in evidence, those arguments will fall when the case comes under active review.”
The panel to whom the matter was submitted specifically prescinded from considering plaintiff’s objections with the following pronunciamento:
"Plaintiff argues in part that certain hospital records were admitted into evidence upon defendant’s motion for the limited purposes set forth in MCLA 600.2146 and that the matters contained therein may not be used otherwise. Our opinion will studiously avoid all of these areas which plaintiff finds to be objectionable.”
What does that mean? If one reads that far and no *256farther, one would conclude that the appeal board ruled in favor of plaintiff, at least impliedly, on all of these allegedly objectionable matters. However, two pages later the appeal board quotes specifically the testimony of Dr. Lester on which it then bases its finding:
”Q. (By Mr. Wallace): Okay. Now, Doctor, what effect, if any, could the enlarged heart and the arterialsclerotic [sic] heart disease have on the diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, moderate?
"A. When a patient has an inefficiently functioning enlarged heart the back pressure which I alluded to before may lead to abnormal ventilation of the lungs. Again the lungs no longer function adequately.”
The appeal board’s operative finding was as follows:
" * * * Plaintiff’s lung problems are explained on the basis of the enlarged heart problem from which he suffered. This produced his chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and not the work environment. Plaintiff’s problems, we conclude on the basis of Dr. Lester’s testimony, were the product of the natural aging process.”
.. My reading of the record isolates the enlarged heart diagnosis to the X-ray report which Dr. Lester relied on. The plaintiffs doctor did not find an enlarged heart. Another physician whose deposition was taken, who we may consider ¡ as not belonging to either of the parties, also made no finding of an enlarged heart during a 1969 hospitalization.
The majority is in error in reaching the question of whether the radiologist’s report described a physical condition or a medical diagnosis. I do not *257find it so easy to conclude that an enlarged heart is a general description of a physical condition within the Bond v Greenwood, 34 Mich App 41, 43; 190 NW2d 731 (1971), ruling. The referee never faced the issue of whether or not the radiologist’s conclusion was a diagnosis of a medical condition and we should not either. The appeal board erroneously stated that it was avoiding the areas which plaintiff found to be objectionable. The question is not whether the evidence is competent or incompetent. The evidence is outside of the record. The appeal board’s decision was improperly grounded on evidence dehors the record.
I would reverse the appeal board with respect to this finding and reinstate the decision of the referee in all respects as I find no other evidence, competent, material or otherwise, to support the appeal board’s ruling except that evidence it expressly discarded.