Court Opinion

ID: 9625325
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:36:30.525027+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:06.315668
License: Public Domain

Grady, C. J.
(dissenting)—I am not in accord with the view that the board based its award of forty per cent permanent partial disability wholly upon the experience of its members in the evaluation of disability, or that in making an evaluation of disability the board acts in such a capacity that its members cannot or should not use their experience in the administration of the workmen’s compensation act to aid them in determining the percentage of permanent partial disability in a particular case under consideration. It is a matter of common knowledge that judges, jurors, and others who weigh such a thing as opinion evidence can be and are aided in its evaluation if they have had experience in the particular field being explored. Of course, experience alone without anything else would not enable the members of the board or a judge or a jury to make an evaluation; but here the board had conflicting evidence before it as to the percentage of permanent partial disability suffered by the claimant, and it seems to me we are cutting the slice to an irreducible minimum when we say the members of the board cannot and must not be aided by past experience in weighing the conflicting opinions because, forsooth, we have on occasion said the. board performed quasi-judicial functions. We may so declare, but we cannot erase the human element; people will use their common sense and experience no matter in what capacity they may act. Perhaps the solution is to use such factors but say nothing about it, and thus avoid the undoing of a good and just performance. The trial court agreed with the board and in the review of its judgment I see no reason for alarm.