Court Opinion

ID: 9738019
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:40:41.307607+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:03.257722
License: Public Domain

PETERS, P. J., Concurring.
I concur with everything stated in the main opinion.
As that opinion points out, the uneontradicted medical testimony in this ease is to the effect that the employee is 100 per cent disabled. The commission seeks to support its 77 per cent rating by reference to a certain “Schedule for Rating Permanent Disabilities”, and by a supplemental return containing certain confidential reports of the Permanent Disability Rating Department of the commission. On March 17, 1937, this department reported that the rating was 37% per cent; on May 7, 1937, it reported no change in its opin*257ion; on May 11, 1939, it reported that the permanent disability rating was 77 per cent; and on July 18, 1939, in an interoffice communication, this department gave as its opinion that the rating should be 91 per cent or 100 per cent. All of these reports described the injury in substantially the same manner, and all purport to be based on ratings contained in the “Schedule for Rating Permanent Disabilities”. It is conceded that these reports were not made available to counsel on either side of this case.  At the oral argument it was disclosed that it is the practice of the respondent commission, after a case is closed, to submit the medical evidence to its own rating department, and to receive from that department a confidential report as to the degree of disability of the employee. In the present case, the award was based on the confidential report of May 11, 1939. Such practice cannot be approved. Neither the employee nor the carrier are given an opportunity to cross-examine the expert in order to demonstrate that he applied the wrong schedule to the particular case, or to show, as in the present case, that there is no schedule applying to the particular injury. The award must be based on evidence, and that means evidence legally and properly introduced. The commission, as trier of the fact, has no legal right to predicate its award upon the opinion of its own or any other expert, when such opinion does not appear in the record.
This problem is not a simple one of computation. The fact that the expert of the commission, at different times, has rated this particular injury in three or four different ways, demonstrates this. Obviously, no schedule can apply to every possible injury. No schedule can take into consideration the degree of pain, the ability of the injured man to continue to compete in the labor market, and other possible factors. This is the subject of expert testimony. This testimony should be made part of the record, available to both sides, and the expert should be made available for cross-examination. Confidential, secret opinions should play no part in the making of any award.
Ward, J., concurred.