Court Opinion

ID: 9721910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:12:22.542167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:29.154598
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE UNDERWOOD, dissenting: I cannot agree that the unanimous action of the arbitrator, Industrial Commission and circuit court of Cook County in denying compensation was contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. The record before us contains no objective evidence supporting or accounting for claimant’s allegations of pain. Dr. Weinger, who had originally thought claimant had an acute lumbosacral sprain, some six weeks later diagnosed her condition as a mild herniated disc. By the time the case was heard by the arbitrator the doctor indicated he could find no pathology and could not make a positive diagnosis. X rays and a myelogram were essentially negative. Dr. Matz’s report, not referred to by the majority, found no neurological deficits. Between the arbitrator’s denial of compensation and the hearing before the Commission, claimant underwent further examination. Another myelogram was negative, and the results of a lumbar venogram were inconclusive. Because claimant persisted in her complaints of pain an exploratory laminectomy was performed. It, too, was negative. Dr. Scuderi testified that if claimant were suffering “true pain” nature would be expected to “splint the back” in response to that pain and that he found no “evidence of paravertebral muscle splinting.” In short, it seems to me that, considering the deference usually paid Commission findings (see, e.g., Gould National Batteries, Inc. v. Industrial Com. (1966), 34 Ill. 2d 151), the unanimous denial of compensation here cannot be said to be contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. I would affirm.