Court Opinion

ID: 9508380
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 21:31:15.372453+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:07:31.888039
License: Public Domain

*258MR. JUSTICE HUNT
delivered the Opinion of the Court.
The State Compensation Insurance Fund (State Fund) appeals a Workers’ Compensation Court order setting aside the full and final compromise settlement of respondent Darryl Weldele’s Workers’ Compensation claim.
We affirm.
The dispositive issue on appeal is whether a mutual mistake of material fact, at the time the compromise settlement was entered into, prevented the parties from effectively consenting to the agreement. The Workers’ Compensation Court found that there was and we agree.
In July, 1978, respondent suffered a work-related injury while working for Medley Development in Cascade County, Montana. The State Fund accepted liability for respondent’s injury and paid temporary total disability benefits to him. At the time of the injury, respondent experienced pain from the base of his neck down to his wrist and across his right shoulder and shoulder blade. Several days after the injury, respondent went to a hospital emergency room where he was examined by Dr. George Schemm. Dr. Schemm tested respondent at that time and later testified by deposition that the results of the test were consistent with carpal tunnel syndrome, which is a compression of a nerve in the wrist. Dr. Schemm also testified that he considered thoracic outlet syndrome as an explanation for respondent’s neck and arm pain but that he found no evidence of that problem at that time. Dr. Charles Jennings also examined respondent and found indications of carpal tunnel syndrome and rotator cuff syndrome, the latter being an inflammation of shoulder tendons. Dr. Jennings considered the possibility that respondent had thoracic outlet syndrome, but rejected that diagnosis. In August, 1978, Dr. Schemm operated on respondent to relieve respondent’s carpal tunnel syndrome.
In July, 1980, respondent, with counsel, petitioned the Workers’ Compensation Division for a lump-sum payment of $14,000 as a full and final compromise settlement of his claim. At that time, respondent was still experiencing severe discomfort with his right arm. Respondent testified that both Dr. Jennings and Dr. Schemm assured him prior to his petition that the carpal tunnel syndrome had been treated fairly successfully and that his continuing problems with the rotator cuff syndrome would very probably dissipate over time.
The State Fund claims examiner approved a full and final compro*259mise settlement of respondent’s claim for $14,000. In August, 1980, the Workers’ Compensation Division formally approved the settlement. At that time, the claims examiner believed respondent’s injuries were a right rotator cuff tear, a healed carpal tunnel syndrome on the right side and some chronic pain.
Following the execution of the settlement agreement, respondent experienced increasing difficulties with pain and loss of feeling in his right shoulder and arm. Respondent saw a number of doctors in attempting to resolve his problems. Beginning in 1982, several doctors mentioned the possibility that respondent might be suffering from thoracic outlet syndrome. Generally, thoracic outlet syndrome is a compression of, or pressure on, certain nerves and/or arteries in the chest around the collarbone area which can have serious effects on the shoulders, arms and hands of the afflicted.
In 1982, Dr. Bonvallet diagnosed respondent as having symptoms of thoracic outlet syndrome on the right side. He performed an operation on respondent in November, 1982, to attempt to relieve the thoracic outlet syndrome. During the course of the operation, Dr. Bonvallet made objective findings consistent with that condition. He later testified that he thought that it was more probable than not that respondent’s 1978 work injury was the cause of the thoracic outlet syndrome symptoms. Initially, the operation was very successful in relieving respondent’s discomfort. Within two months, however, respondent’s symptoms had returned almost to the same degree. In October, 1983, respondent quit his job on the advice of his doctors and because of worsening symptoms. He has not been employed since then.
In January, 1985, Dr. Oreskovich diagnosed respondent as suffering from thoracic outlet syndrome on the left side. He testified by deposition that he thought respondent developed thoracic outlet syndrome because of the 1978 work-related injury. He stated that he knew that within a reasonable degree of medical certainty. Dr. Oreskovich also stated that thoracic outlet syndrome is difficult to diagnose. Dr. Bonvallet agreed with Dr. Oreskovich on this point and added that, in his experience, patients suffering from thoracic outlet syndrome are commonly misdiagnosed for three or four years. In June, 1985, Dr. Oreskovich operated on respondent and performed a first rib resection on the left side in an attempt to relieve the thoracic outlet syndrome. During the operation, this doctor also made objective findings confirming his diagnosis of thoracic outlet syndrome.
*260In May, 1985, respondent requested his case be reopened on the grounds that it had been settled due to a mutual mistake of a material fact. The allegedly mistaken fact was the nature, and extent, of respondent’s medical condition. The State Fund declined to reopen the case. The court held a hearing on respondent’s petition in October, 1985, and in January, 1986, the court issued its decision.
The court found that at the time of the settlement agreement both the respondent and the State Fund’s claims examiner, believed that respondent’s injuries were limited to a healed carpal tunnel syndrome and a rotator cuff problem. The court also found that respondent is suffering from thoracic outlet syndrome, which condition resulted from respondent’s 1978 work injury. The court ruled that both parties were operating under a mutual mistake of material fact in entering the settlement agreement. Therefore, the court held that respondent was entitled to reopen the settlement.
Generally, Section 39-71-204, MCA, limits the power of the Workers’ Compensation Court to amend a compromise settlement:
“Except as provided in 39-71-2908, the division of the workers’ compensation judge shall not have the power to rescind, alter, or amend any order approving a full and final compromise settlement of compensation.”
Section 39-71-204(2), MCA.
Under Section 39-71-2908, MCA, the Workers’ Compensation judge may, within ten days of the judge’s receipt of the order, disapprove an order allowing a full and final compromise settlement. “This Court has held in several cases that these statutes preclude reopening of [sic] Workers’ Compensation settlements.” Sollie v. Peavey Co. and Travelers Indemnity Co. (Mont. 1984), [212 Mont. 197,] 686 P.2d 920, 41 St.Rep. 1684.
However, in Kienas v. Peterson (Mont. 1980), 624 P.2d 1, 37 St.Rep. 1747, opinion on rehearing, 38 St.Rep. 320, this Court established that under ordinary contract law a full and final compromise settlement could be set aside if the parties to the agreement were operating under a mutual mistake of material fact. We said “a universally accepted tenet of contract law, statutory in our state, that consent to the contract is lacking if it is entered into through mutual mistake of a material fact by the parties.” Kienas, 38 St.Rep. at 321. It is welk settled that if there is no consent, there is no contract. Section 28-2-409, MCA, states that:
“Mistake of fact is a mistake not caused by the neglect of a legal duty on the part of the person making the mistake and consisting in:
*261“(1) an unconscious ignorance or forgetfulness of fact, past or present, material to the contract; or
“(2) belief in the present existence of a thing material to the contract which does not exist or in the past existence of such a thing which has not existed.”
In Kienas, we allowed the claimant to reopen his full and final compromise settlement because neither party to the agreement realized that Kienas’ work-related injury could have aggravated or accelerated his prior condition of cerebral palsy.
Here, the Workers’ Compensation Court found there was a mutual mistake of fact. From the record before us we find there is more than sufficient evidence to support the finding by the lower court of mutual mistake by the parties. This case is similar to Kienas on that issue and we find that case to be controlling. Claimant Weldele and the appellant were mistaken as to the thoracic outlet syndrome. All doctors interviewed in this case testified that thoracic outlet syndrome is very difficult to diagnose. One specialist stated the syndrome is frequently misdiagnosed for three or four years. The doctors who treated the claimant for this syndrome believed the syndrome was caused by his 1978 accident. This syndrome is uniquely difficult to diagnose. The evidence shows an unconscious ignorance of a material fact on the part of both parties upon which the final settlement was based.
The need to fairly compensate the injured worker is the intent and the purpose of the Workers’ Compensation law. Kienas v. Peterson (Mont. 1980), 624 P.2d 1, 3, 37 St.Rep. 1751. We find the final compromise settlement was correctly set aside by the Workers’ Compensation Court.
We affirm the decision of the Workers’ Compensation Court.
MR. JUSTICES HARRISON, SHEEHY and WEBER concur.