Court Opinion

ID: 9519011
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:07:15.714247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:40:45.687641
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE RAKOWSKI, dissenting: For the reasons that follow, I respectfully submit that the Commission’s finding that claimant’s condition of ill-being was causally related to his employment is against the manifest weight of the evidence. The majority relies on Dr. Greenberg’s conclusion that claimant did not smoke, drink, or have a family history of heart attacks or strokes. While this statement may very well be true, I fail to understand the significance of risk factors where there is clear objective evidence that claimant was at significant risk of stroke. Prior to his stroke, claimant had high blood pressure, a history of hypertension, extensive atherosclerotic changes in his blood vessels, and stenotic vessels. It is beyond question that claimant possessed numerous increased factors for cerebral ischemia. I also disagree with the Commission’s conclusion that claimant’s argument with the service manager was an event of such magnitude so as to create a causal relationship to claimant’s stroke. Arguments are not uncommon events. They occur in all aspects of daily life and often in an employment setting. Nor is the conclusion that the argument that supposedly took place was "heated” supported by the evidence. Carl Guido, the service manager whom claimant contends he argued with, testified that he had a good relationship with claimant and that he did not recall any argument with him. Richard Seden, the manager, also testified. He, too, denied any knowledge of the purported verbal altercation between claimant and Guido. Garland Trotter, a co-worker, testified that he did not witness any argument but that claimant told him he had problems getting a customer’s car repaired. Harry Bass, the customer, testified that he witnessed an argument but left before it was concluded. Although the claimant characterizes the argument as "heated,” there is no evidence in the record to support such a conclusion. The occurrence of a heart attack at claimant’s work place does not automatically establish that the injury arose out of and in the course of employment. Illinois Bell Telephone Co. v. Industrial Comm’n, 35 Ill. 2d 474, 477 (1966). Where the heart disease has progressed so far that any ordinary stress or exertion would have brought on the heart attack, claimant is not entitled to recovery. Doyle v. Industrial Comm’n, 86 Ill. 2d 544, 550 (1981). I respectfully submit that this is such a case. In my view, an opposite conclusion is clearly apparent. Drogos v. Village of Bensenville, 100 Ill. App. 3d 48, 54 (1981). Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the circuit court.