Court Opinion

ID: 9530458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:00:01.419179+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:07.194073
License: Public Domain

O’CONNELL, J.,
specially concurring.
I fully concur in the opinion of the court but I feel that the possible economic and social import of our decision should be made known.
The extension of the meaning of accident to include injury or death resulting from usual exertion on the job, which OBS 656.002 (19) now accomplishes, certainly will, result in increasing the number of industrial accident claims. The fear has been expressed that this type of definition “opens the flood gates and *417every internal failure becomes an accident just because it happens.” Purity Biscuit Co. v. Industrial Commission, 115 Utah 1, 201 P2d 961 (1949). And see, Note, 31 Wash L Rev 192 (1956); Note, 41 Marquette L Rev 347 (1958). However, there are some controls because as 1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 38.83, p 565 notes,. “There must still be an unexpected result, and there must still be an. exertion — some exertion — capable medically of causing the collapse.”
The case at bar illustrates the extent to which a slight exertion can be regarded as a contributing cause of the injury or death. The mere movement of the arm in manipulating the lever was regarded by plaintiff’s medical witness as a probable causal factor in bringing decedent’s heart weakness to a climax in death. The jury could have accepted this explanation for the workman’s death and we are not entitled to substitute our judgment in the matter. Since, in cases of this type, it can be expected that medical testimony will always be presented by claimant to establish causal connection between exertion and death, the result of adopting the broad definition prescribed by the legislature is to make compensable nearly every death from cardiac weakness, assuming, of course, that some work movement accompanies the attack.
The cost of such a program can come high, and it is not all visited upon the employer. It has been estimated that in the state of Washington the cost to an employer for the death of one employe is in excess of ten thousand dollars. There is evidence that because of this potential cost it is very difficult in that state for a person with cardiac trouble to obtain employment. Rutledge, Proposed Procedure for Administering Heart Cases Under the Washington Industrial Insurance Act, 31 Wash L Rev 67 (1956). This prospect *418of increased costs and the unemployment of persons afflicted with heart disease, resulting from the broadened definition of “accident,” would not be the cause for comment in this opinion if it were not for the fact that there is substantial medical opinion to the effect that usual strain should not be considered as a cause of heart attack. Aronson, Effects of Effort on the Diseased Heart, 55 Northwest Medicine 54 (1956). See also, Viko, Medico-Legal Problems of the Heart in Relationship to Injury, 23 Utah Bar Bulletin 47 (1953). Cf., Boas, Trauma and Heart Disease, 2 NACCA 113 (1948); Phipps, The Effect of Work on the Diseased Heart, 2 U S Labor Dept Bull 175 (1934).
If there is no causal connection between usual strain and heart failure, the accident does not “arise out of” the employment and the disability or death is not legally compensable. It is argued that the granting of recovery in heart cases where there is no more than usual strain constitutes a judicial discarding of the requirement that to be compensable an injury must arise out of the employment. Hubbard, Trends in Compensable Heart Incidents, 26 Ins Counsel J 154 (1959). But this is true only if one rejects the testimony of medical witnesses who take the stand and in lieu thereof accept the opinion of medical experts as reported outside of court. This, of course, we cannot do.
It has been suggested that the courts might create a rebuttable presumption to the effect that usual strain is not a cause of heart attack. Newland, Heart Attack Cases Under the Washington Workmen’s Compensation Act, 33 Wash L Rev 420 (1958). It would be reasonable to recognize such a presumption if we could take judicial notice of the medical opinion referred to above, but as we have already stated, this we are not *419permitted to do. Other possible solutions have been suggested. See Rutledge, Proposed Procedure for Administering Heart Cases Under the Washington Industrial Insurance Act, 31 Wash L Rev 67 (1956); Note, 47 Ky L J 451 (1959).
The solution, if one is desired, must come from the legislature and not from the courts. We can do no more than report the problem as we see it and indicate the limits of our power to solve it.
McAllister, C. J., concurs.