Court Opinion

ID: 9662483
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:10:39.568813+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:39.977638
License: Public Domain

Peterson, Justice
(dissenting).
The court, by the majority opinion, departs from longstanding practice of deference to the role of the Workmen’s Compensation Commission in finding facts, and embarks on a course of weighing for itself the credibility and weight of both lay and expert testimony and substituting its findings of fact for those of the commission.
The court holds that, as a matter of its own exercise of “commonsense,” it cannot be doubted that relator sustained a work-related aggravation of a preexisting physical infirmity. We should consider, therefore, the evidence supportive of the commission’s findings.
It is clear that on May 23, 1968 — 4 years before she took employment with respondent employer on August 17, 1972 — relator sustained a permanent partial disability of her back in an automobile accident. She continued to suffer persistent pain and stiffness in her neck and back, headaches, and numbness in her hands at least to the time she settled her claim with respect to that accident on March 17, 1972, 5 months prior to taking this employment. Her present complaints, as hereafter noted, are similar, if not, indeed, the same as they were at that time.
Relator took employment with respondent-employer on August 17, 1972, and claims that she reinjured herself on August 30, 1972, while working on employer’s production line. The com*516mission stated that she “did some degree of heavy work in the handling of the doors on August 29, 1972,” but at that time “she noted no immediate untoward event.” She continued at work for 2 days, but not thereafter. It is actually far from clear in her testimony either as to which of 2 possible days the asserted injury occurred or what kind of materials she was handling at the time; and it is not clear from her testimony whether it was on the next morning, or the day following, that she awoke feeling “that trouble in [her] neck and ached all over.” The majority opinion states that the commission finding “is directly contrary to [relator’s] testimony, supported by that of a fellow employee.” My reading of the transcript discloses no testimony of a fellow employee directly supporting relator’s claim and, in any event, it is for the commission to determine the credibility and weight of such testimony.
It was not until September 19, 1972 — approximately 3 weeks later — that relator reported that she had been injured at work. Her physical complaints since then have consisted of the following: pain in the left side of the neck; pain radiating over the top of her head, giving her headaches and affecting her left eye; pain in her upper back and into her right arm, causing a tingling in the little, ring, and middle fingers of her right hand; numbness and tingling in her left arm, with a tendency for her left hand to fall asleep. These complaints are strikingly similar to those stated in the deposition of Dr. Lumir C. Proshek, who treated relator in connection with her prior automobile accident:
“* * * [H]er chief complaints were that she tended to have persistent symptoms of pain and stiffness in her neck and on both sides, the back of her neck and in the midline. To a slight degree, they are continuous and aggravated by such activities as driving, ironing, scrubbing floors or watching television to excess. Associated with exacerbation of these symptoms she then gets generalized headaches and pains in her eyes. She also has episodes of aching pain and stiffness through the mid thoracic spine area. There is no special cause for it, and it is relieved *517usually by extending the spine. She also gets episodes of numbness involving the entire left hand on occasion, usually one or more times a day, and it occurs over a brief period of time while sitting, disappears after she rubs her hand. She has also noted that her left elbow tends to stiffen up on occasion each day.”
Dr. Proshek had diagnosed her condition as “ [p] rimarily extension flexion injury with subsequent development of cervical disc disease with radiculitis and headaches.”
Relator consulted her family physician, Dr. A. M. Hall, on September 26,1972. He stated that it was undetermined whether her complaints were caused, aggravated, or accelerated by her employment activity but advised that “if she continued to have trouble with this and was making a case of it she should go to a specialist * * She thereafter consulted Dr. Robert A. Wengler, who testified to his opinion that her employment precipitated an acute recurring disc syndrome.
The opinion testimony of Dr. Thomas H. Comfort, giving expert testimony on behalf of the employer, is of more immediate relevance in the context of the commission’s finding adverse to relator and this court’s contrary finding. Upon a hypothetical question, which included relator’s version concerning the onset of her complaints, he was asked his opinion as to whether the relator had suffered an injury or a flareup of her condition. His answer was:
“I can’t be as precise, but there is a possibility that she had an aggravation of her symptoms as a result of the particular work she was doing.” (Italics supplied.)
He had not, however, regarded the history given him by relator as entirely candid. Although he considered it medically reasonable to assume that there was a temporary aggravation of her condition as a result of the assumed work activities, it was his opinion that “the kind of work that was described could not have aggravated for longer than a few days or a week.”
*518The court’s opinion, of course, assesses the evidence differently than does the commission. The commission’s assessment is expressed in the memorandum of Commissioner James Pomush:
“* * * [I]t is difficult to believe that all of these • difficulties completely vanished on March 6, 1972, the date of the settlement and her remarriage. Surely these important helpful events, as she indicated, gave her a feeling of well being and gave her help in her family affairs. And very much to her credit, she pursued the opportunity of employment. However, although she did some degree of heavy work in the handling of the doors on August 29, 1972, she noted no immediate untoward event. Needless to say, after such a long layoff of work and in light of her pre-existing difficulties, any work or activity of some substance would create a certain amount of aggravation. Unfortunately, her symptoms again mainfested themselves sometime during the following days. The testimony of labor and activity was revelatory of her inability at that time to be other than sedentary. As Dr. Comfort stated:
‘It’s not medically unreasonable to make the attempt, so we usually tell people it will take a year or two years to learn what they can or can’t do and they will have to test themselves out.’
“Thus, under the circumstances of this case, we cannot state the employee suffered a personal injury which aggravated a preexisting condition into continuing difficulty.”
A recital of three relatively recent decisions of this court will demonstrate the extent to which today’s decision works a significant departure from precedent in workmen’s compensation cases. These are: Gillette v. Harold, Inc. 257 Minn. 313, 101 N. W. 2d 200 (1960); Fisher v. Red & White Taxi Co. 270 Minn. 317, 133 N. W. 2d 543 (1965); and Forseen v. Tire Retread Co. Inc. 271 Minn. 399, 136 N. W. 2d 75 (1965). The settled law established in these cases is that disability resulting from aggravation of a physical infirmity is compensable under the Workmen’s Compensation Act even where the preexisting infirmity is not causal*519ly connected with, the employment but where the aggravation is nevertheless work related. The common element of these cases, despite differing results, is that it is for the commission to determine whether a claimed aggravation is, as a matter of fact, work related.
The factual issue in Gillette involved an employee who had been employed by the relator-employer for 17 years as a clothing saleslady whose duties necessarily required her to be on her feet, either standing or walking most of the time, aggregating a distance of approximately 18 miles per day. Some years prior to her compensation claim, she had become aware of a painful condition in her left foot, resulting from a chip fracture, which ultimately led to surgery to alleviate what was diagnosed as a “deteriorative disorder of the metatarsal phalangeal joint of the left great toe.” Although there was no evidence that this underlying condition was in any way caused by her employment, there was medical testimony that the continual use of the foot in bearing the weight of the employee aggravated that condition and caused disablement.1 Affirming the commission’s award of compensation, we said (257 Minn. 323, 101 N. W. 2d 207):
“* * * The preexisting infirmity from which she suffered was aggravated as a result of the ordinary and necessary duties which she performed. The gradual process of the physical exertion required by her work resulted in weakness and pain, the accumulated effect of which is the disability from which she suffers.
“Moreover, it is not within our province to inquire as to the weight of the evidence supporting the commission’s findings in a workmen’s compensation case. The findings of the [Workmen’s Compensation Commission] should not be disturbed unless a re*520view of the evidence and the permissible inferences drawn therefrom clearly requires reasonable minds to adopt a contrary conclusion.”
This court, on the other hand, affirmed the commission’s denial of compensation in Fisher v. Red & White Taxi Co. supra. Relator-employee was employed as a cabdriver from 1952 to the latter part of 1961. There, as here, the employee had suffered a neck injury in an unrelated automobile accident, an injury which caused pain in the arm, neck, elbow, and shoulder blade areas; he did not suffer any pain in the lower back area at that time. The employee thereafter claimed a compensable injury to his back, allegedly caused by the rotation and twisting of his spine while entering and alighting from the cab and performing other functions as a cabdriver. He claimed that he began to suffer a pain in his lower back on September 11, 1961, and on September 23, he told the dispatcher that “my back is just aching and killing me, I can’t take it, can’t sit in the cab, I’m so sore.” There, as here, there was no evidence of trauma or violent force prior to the onset of these aches and pains. The employee’s physician was the only medical witness, and he testified that the low back pain was the result of a new injury and not related to the prior automobile accident. He testifed that the residual 'difficulty that the employee had was the result of the incident, “whatever it was,” that occurred in September 1961 and that, although a person had a degenerative disc condition, the fact that he was sitting driving a taxicab for long periods of time could cause a final disc rupture. Affirming the commission’s finding, which involved a weighing of the expert medical testimony, we said (270 Minn. 325, 133 N. W. 2d 548) :
“It is our opinion that the evidentiary differences between Gillette and this case were fact questions for the commission and •that it was within its authority, under the evidence here, in concluding that there was a lack of evidence of weight that relator’s *521employment or any more than his other daily living caused, the ultimate rupture of his disc and resultant disability.
“We have repeatedly held that the commission’s determination of fact questions will not be disturbed on appeal unless it is manifestly contrary to the evidence. * * * We cannot say that the record in this case does not contain support for the commission’s decision. The duty of weighing the testimony and drawing the proper inferences therefrom was that of the commission. It is apparent that this was done and that the commission concluded that positive proof of causal connection was lacking. Under those circumstances, this court cannot substitute its judgment for that of the commission.”
Forseen v. Tire Retread Co. Inc. 271 Minn. 399, 136 N. W. 2d 75, is primarily significant for its reliance on both Gillette and Fisher as authority for affirming the commission’s award of compensation. There, unlike both Gillette and Fisher — and the case at hand — the employee had no prior history of disabling incident. He was employed at tasks involving the lifting and pushing of heavy-duty diesel tires, but had never experienced any trouble with his back. On the date of the alleged injury-producing incident, the employee felt no strain and experienced no pain, but awoke with pain in his lower back. He reported to work the next day and continued his work even though he continued to have pain. The expert medical witness, who had performed a laminectomy for the employee and who testified on his behalf, concluded that the employee had a progressively degenerative disease of the lumbar discs. The medical expert for the employer-insurer similarly gave his opinion that the employee was “the victim of a progressive degenerative condition involving the discs of the spine,” and concluded that his disability was not due to trauma but possibly, although not to a medical certainty, “due to a hereditary factor.” A divided commission determined that the employee’s heavy labor for a period of time prior to the stated incident accelerated or aggravated a preexisting *522condition. Affirming the decision of the commission, we said (271 Minn. 402, 136 N. W. 2d 77):
“We think that this case is directly controlled by Gillette. * * *
“It is thus clear that an employee may receive benefits upon disablement if his work activities aggravated his infirmity, even if they did not do so because of some unusual or violent strain or exertion. But, as we said in the Gillette case, ‘ [t] he important question is whether the employment is a proximate contributing cause of the disability.’ 257 Minn. 322, 101 N. W. 2d 206.
“Keeping in mind that we will not disturb the findings of the [Workmen’s Compensation Commission] unless manifestly contrary to the evidence, we find sufficient evidence here to support a conclusion that employment contributed to the disablement. It is uncontradicted that the employee was compelled to move, push, and shove heavy tires in the normal course of his work. * * *
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“The weight of this testimony, and the absence of any evidence tending to show any other external causes of deterioration, support the commission’s determination and award of compensation.
“* * * In accord with Fisher v. Red & White Taxi Co. 270 Minn. 317, 133 N. W. 2d 543, where we upheld a denial of benefits based upon the commission’s determination of a parallel fact issue in favor of the employer-insurer, we must decline to disturb the award.”
The commission in the instant case found that, during her employment with this employer, relator “did not sustain a personal injury * * * which can be said to have aggravated a pre-existing condition into continuing difficulty” and that, instead, she “suffered a manifestation of continuing symptoms related to her non-employment auto accident of 1968.” Whether or not it may-be considered to be a close issue of fact, the commission made a permissible finding, and I would not disturb that finding.

 The commission in the instant case factually distinguished Gillette v. Harold, Inc. 257 Minn. 313, 101 N. W. 2d 200 (1960), as a case where “the symptoms were not revelatory of nor a manifestation of a continuing condition, but rather an aggravation of a pre-existing skeletal defect by a substantial work condition which created a new physical difficulty.”