Court Opinion

ID: 9672997
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:04:04.612249+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:19.394601
License: Public Domain

White, C. J.,
dissenting.
The plaintiff’s treatment doctor in this case testified as follows: “Q. Doctor, to get right down to it, you can’t say why or how this man happened to have this stroke? * * * A. Medically speaking, pathologically speaking, no; I can’t, probably God only knows why he did. * * * Q. Do you remember being asked this question in your deposition, ‘Question, Whether the long hours or the moving of the chute or a combination of both, were a precipitating cause? Answer, I don’t say that those conditions were directly a precipitating cause.’ * * * Q. Do you remember those questions and those answers? A. Uh-huh.” Lest these questions and answers be challenged as being out of context, I submit that the record fairly reflects a repetitious reiteration that this plaintiff’s activities on his job could have been a precipitating or a contributing factor to the occurrence of the stroke.
In the majority opinion, much is made of the extremely heavy labor indulged in handling the chute. The treatment doctor testified as follows: “Q. Would you not have to know how much the chute weighed and how he pushed it and how much force was exerted? A. No. Q. And what type of man he was, whether he was. strong or weak, my size or your size, how big he was? A. No. Q. Those things are not important? A. No, they are not important. We in the medical field are a little bit different than in a legal matter.” As I interpret the record in this case it leads me to the following conclusions or observations: (1) The prevailing state of medical uncertainty as to the connection between antecedent effort with the cause of stroke, (2) that' here the antecedent effort or strain merely could have been a precipitating- *767or contributing factor, (3) that the comparative long intervening period of time between the strain or effort and the occurrence of a stroke while the plaintiff was sleeping distinguishes this, case from other types of cases where recovery has been allowed, and (4) the first appearance of a reconstructed history connecting, the man’s employment with this stroke appeared for the first time several months after the occurrence of the stroke and after the doctors had been treating the plaintiff for a considerable period of time. This is explained upon the theory that the plaintiff was incompetent to speak during this period of time. It leaves this, area nebulous from the standpoint of proof, to say the least.
We should remember that our examination of this record here is de novo and we are required as fact finders to find affirmatively that this stroke was proximately caused, with reasonable medical certainty, from an accident arising out of the plaintiff’s employment. Although the plaintiff’s treatment doctors at different times in their examinations gave lip. service to the ritual questions establishing the element of reasonable medical certainty, I submit that their testimony falls far short of any reasonable conclusion that the plaintiff has met the burden of proof required under our law. If we were reviewing this case simply to determine the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury verdict, the question would be entirely different, and even on that basis, I believe there wolud be a grave question as to the sufficiency of this record.
I submit that the 1963 amendment to our Workmen’s Compensation Act did not change, nor was it intended to change, the basic rules with respect to the burden of proof and the fact that the accident had to arise out of and in the course of employment to be compensable. The only substantive change made in the previous Workmen’s Compensation Act by the 1963 amendment was to eliminate our previous and rather transitory judicial interpretation that “unexpected or unforeseen event” meant *768only “an external” event. It was meant solely to delete the previous requirement that a claimant show injury from an external event such as a slip, trip, fall, or unusual exertion. The objective of the amendment to the statute was to eliminate these rather fortuitous requirements and to focus the primary attention in exertion and strain cases on factual matters of employment and medical causation. The intent to reinforce the requirements of proof is demonstrated in the following new language in the 1963 amendment: “There shall be no presumption from, the mere occurrence of such unexpected or unforeseen injury, that the injury was in fact caused by the employment.” I submit that the injury to a plaintiff at the time and place sustained by such employee must be traceable to some employment circumstances, and second, that such circumstances must have happened suddenly and violently and produced at the time objective symptoms of an injury.
The statute as amended in 1963 provides: “The word accident * * * shall, * * * be construed to mean an unexpected or unforeseen injury happening suddenly and violently, with or without human fault, and producing at the time objective symptoms of an injury. The claimant shall have a burden of proof to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that such unexpected or unforeseen injury was in fact caused by the employment. There shall be no presumption from the mere occurrence of such unexpected or unforeseen injury that the injury was in fact caused by the employment.” It is significant that the 1963 Legislature, in enacting this amended statute, felt that the statutory requirement of suddenness must be preserved. Legislative Bill 498, introduced in the 1963 Nebraska Legislative Session, would have deleted the requirement of “suddenness” but was unanimously killed by the Judiciary Committee, to which both bills were referred, and the amended statute as set out above was ultimately reported out without a deletion of this language.
*769In my opinion the evidence in this case falls far short of meeting the requirement of being employment-caused or happening suddenly and violently and producing at the time objective symptoms of an injury. This case demonstrates the helplessness of an employer to be able to check and ascertain the facts surrounding the requirement of “producing at the time objective symptoms of an injury.” The chute incident and the strain allegedly surrounding it were reconstructed almost 6 months after the time of the alleged “sudden happening.”
I do not believe that the 1963 amendment to the Workmen’s Compensation Act was intended, either expressly or covertly, to permit an enlargement of compensation liability into the area of health coverage during the time period of employment. In fact, a close reading of the statute and the history reveals that it was intended to reenforce the previous judicially announced requirements of proof in workmen’s compensation cases where there was no observable or objectively identified accident external to the surface of the body.
Manual effort and lifting strain, of course, are inherent in the ordinary course of employment, as of course is clearly demonstrated in the type of employment present in this case. The door is now thrown open to the establishment of a hindsight connection between some effort on the job and a contemporaneously suffered stroke by the employee. The connection was sustained by medical testimony that this could have been a contributing or could have been a precipitating factor. I submit that this not only fails to meet the factual requirements of proof set out in our statute and in our judicial decisions but is contrary to the purposes and objectives of the Workmen’s Compensation Act and the amendment in 1963 to the statute. It effectively prevents an employer or his insurer from being able to factually check or investigate the claimed accident occurring suddenly and violently and producing objective symptoms at the time of the injury. It is common knowledge that there is a *770much greater incidence of stroke in men in their 50’s and 60’s. The query arises as to whether the holding of this court today allowing liability for a stroke under these circumstances would prevent employers from assuming the risk of employing otherwise competent men because of the tremendously enlarged liability for death and total disability arising from this type of “accident.” Nor do I believe that the trial or decision in a compensation case should be converted into “medical speculation as to judicial credulity or judicial speculation as to medical credibility.” The decision in the Workmen’s Compensation Court was divided. I can come to no other conclusion but that this case has failed on factual proof under the most liberal interpretation that can be permitted of the Workmen’s Compensation Act as amended in 1963.