Court Opinion

ID: 9636757
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:41:51.523092+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:48.955925
License: Public Domain

Baldwin, J.
(concurring). The commissioner was faced with a question of fact in determining whether the recommended surgical treatment was reasonable under the terms of the statute. There was no evi*689dence to the effect that it was not. Section 7426, however, contains two separate provisions concerning medical, surgical and hospital care to be provided by the employer on the one hand and accepted by the employee on the other. It states: “The employer, as soon as he shall have knowledge of [the] injury, shall provide a competent physician or surgeon to attend the injured employee, and in addition shall furnish such medical and surgical aid or hospital or nursing service as such physician or surgeon shall deem reasonable or necessary.” This concerns the employer’s responsibility. The statute also provides: “If it shall appear to the commissioner that an injured employee has refused to accept and failed to provide such reasonable medical, surgical or hospital or nursing service, all rights of compensation under the provisions of this chapter shall be suspended during such refusal and failure.” This clause is directed at the employee’s responsibility.
The commissioner found: “In accordance with good orthopedic practice an exploratory operation followed by spinal fusion has been urged upon the [plaintiff] by Dr. Shure. This procedure has likewise been recommended by the [plaintiff’s] own physician, Dr. Poverman. No evidence has been offered to controvert this recommendation.” The plaintiff refused to submit to the recommendation and the commissioner denied him further compensation. The question of reasonableness under such circumstances as those presented here must be considered from the standpoint not only of the employer but of the employee. “The test is not [the employee’s] willingness to submit to operation, but his right to guard life and limb from unreasonable peril.” Snooks's Case, 264 Mass. 92, 93, 161 N.E. 892; see Neault v. Parker-Young Co., 86 N.H. 231, 166 A. 289. As the plaintiff *690had the initial burden of establishing the statutory-essentials of his case (Saunders v. New England Collapsible Tube Co., 95 Conn. 40, 42, 110 A. 538; Glodenis v. American Brass Co., 118 Conn. 29, 41, 170 A. 146), so also does he have the burden of proving that his continuing disability is due to the original injury rather than to an unreasonable refusal by him to submit to the recommended treatment. Burns’s Case, 298 Mass. 78, 79, 9 N.E.2d 719. If the proposed medical or surgical procedure involves real danger and suffering without fair assurance of effecting an improvement or restoration of health, an injured employee should not be denied compensation for refusing to submit to it, for in this event his refusal could not be labeled unreasonable. Ibid.; Robinson v. Jackson, 116 N.J.L. 476, 478, 184 A. 811; note, 105 A.L.R. 1470. In the absence of proof that the measure of recovery to be expected from the medical and surgical procedure recommended did not warrant the danger and suffering involved, the commissioner’s conclusion that the procedure was reasonable must stand.
In this opinion O’Sullivan-, J., concurred.