Court Opinion

ID: 9518058
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:42:06.9025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:14.780841
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GARMAN, dissenting: Claimant’s testimony before the arbitrator more than adequately supports the Commission’s conclusion that claimant’s carpal tunnel syndrome and its relationship to her employment would have been “plainly apparent to a reasonable person” (Peoria County Belwood Nursing Home v. Industrial Comm’n, 115 Ill. 2d 524, 531 (1987)) in September or October of 1997. In reversing the Industrial Commission’s decision that the claim at issue was barred by the Workers’ Compensation Act’s three-year statute of limitations (820 ILCS 305/6(d) (West 2004)), the majority misapplies the deferential manifest weight of the evidence standard of review and obliquely modifies the test set forth in Peoria County for determining the manifestation date of a claimant’s injury. Consequently, I dissent. The evidence presented to the Commission regarding the date claimant’s injury manifested itself included her testimony before the arbitrator (224 Ill. 2d at 59-60) and the medical notes and deposition testimony of the five physicians who examined her (224 Ill. 2d at 56-59). Claimant’s testimony contains four admissions that she was aware of her injury and its relationship to her employment in September or October of 1997, at which time she reported her hand and wrist problems to her supervisor. The medical evidence reveals various conflicting estimates by claimant of the time period when she first noticed the onset of her hand and wrist pain. The majority acknowledges that the Commission’s determination of the date claimant’s injury manifested itself must be given deference on review (224 Ill. 2d at 63-64) and states that the Commission applied the correct legal standard in making that determination (224 Ill. 2d at 65). Accordingly, the Commission’s determination that claimant’s injury manifested itself more than three years before the date she filed her application for benefits should be upheld. As the majority notes, a reviewing court will not reverse a factual determination of the Commission unless it is against the manifest weight of the evidence. Shockley v. Industrial Comm’n, 75 Ill. 2d 189, 193 (1979). To that end, a reviewing court must not reweigh the evidence, or reject reasonable inferences drawn from it by the Commission, simply because other reasonable inferences could have been drawn. International Harvester v. Industrial Comm’n, 93 Ill. 2d 59, 65 (1982). Setting the date of a claimant’s injury is a factual determination for the Commission (Palos Electric Co. v. Industrial Comm’n, 314 Ill. App. 3d 920, 930 (2000)), and that determination is governed by the standard this court set forth in Peoria County: the date of injury in a case involving repetitive trauma is the date when the injury “manifests itself,” meaning “the date on which both the fact of the injury and the causal relationship of the injury to the claimant’s employment would have become plainly apparent to a reasonable person” (Peoria County, 115 Ill. 2d at 531). In this case, it was reasonable for the Commission to conclude, based on the evidence described above, that the fact of claimant’s injury and its relationship to her employment would have been plainly apparent to a reasonable person in September or October of 1997. To begin with, the evidence was sufficient for the Commission to reasonably conclude that the fact of claimant’s injury and its relationship to her employment were actually apparent to her in September or October of 1997. Claimant admitted no less than four times in her testimony before the arbitrator that she was aware of her injury and its relationship to her employment at that time. In evaluating the evidence before it, it was unquestionably within the province of the Commission to give weight to that uncontradicted testimony and discount the conflicting accounts of the onset of claimant’s pain that she gave to her physicians. To the extent the majority questions the reasonableness of claimant’s actual belief in September or October of 1997 that she was injured and the injury was related to her employment, I would again emphasize this court’s limited role as a reviewing tribunal in this case. See International Harvester, 93 Ill. 2d at 65. Claimant testified that she experienced no hand or wrist problems before working at RLI Insurance Company, that she had no hobbies involving the intensive use of her hands, that she did not use a computer outside of work, and that she was generally aware of the nature of carpal tunnel syndrome at the time she reported her hand and wrist problems to her supervisor. Based on this testimony, the Commission could reasonably have inferred that claimant’s belief in September or October of 1997 that her hands and wrists were injured and the injury was related to her employment was a reasonable one. Indeed, even Dr. Robert Martin, the physician who examined claimant at the request of her attorney, testified at his evidentiary deposition that if she experienced symptoms such as “numbness, tingling or pain and combinations thereof” in 1997, those symptoms “certainly could have been” a manifestation of carpal tunnel syndrome. The majority attempts in part to justify its reevaluation of the evidence by relying on General Electric Co. v. Industrial Comm’n, 190 Ill. App. 3d 847, 857 (1989), for the proposition that “[t]he manifestation date is not the date on which the injury and its causal link to work became plainly apparent to a reasonable physician, but the date on which it became plainly apparent to a reasonable employee.” 224 Ill. 2d at 72; see also 224 Ill. 2d at 73 (“RLI essentially asks us to rely on ‘expert’ medical testimony from a layperson, Durand, and ignore her testimony about her intermittent pain and how it affected her performance. *** Durand reached that ‘expert opinion’ based solely on the pain she was having, not on any doctor’s advice”). Notably, in General Electric, the appellate court determined that the evidence supported the conclusion that the claimant’s injury and its connection to her employment would have been plainly apparent to a reasonable person on the date the claimant noticed a “sharp pain” in her shoulder while working, not on the subsequent date when a physician opined that the claimant’s condition and her work were causally related. General Electric, 190 Ill. App. 3d at 857. More importantly, while I agree as a general matter that it would be unfair to expect employees to diagnose their injuries and discern the relationship between their injuries and their employment with the expertise of trained physicians, this proposition is inapposite here. Based on the evidence presented to the Commission, I fail to see why it could not reasonably have concluded that a reasonable person in claimant’s circumstances would have been aware she was injured and that the injury was employment related. The only way to maintain this position is to do as the majority has done: second-guess the Commission’s interpretation of claimant’s testimony and suggest it was unreasonable for her to be aware of her condition until she was formally diagnosed. The majority cites no authority for the proposition that the manifestation date of a claimant’s injury must be determined on the basis of a formal medical evaluation. In fact, the majority emphasizes that “fairness and flexibility are the common themes” of cases that have applied the Peoria County standard and acknowledges that “the Commission should weigh many factors in deciding when a repetitive-trauma injury manifests itself.” 224 Ill. 2d at 71. I have no quarrel with permitting the Commission to weigh numerous factors in determining when a repetitive-trauma injury manifests itself. It strikes me as somewhat ironic, however, that the majority’s resolution of this case actually appears to narrow the permissible scope of the Commission’s inquiry in setting a manifestation date. The majority declares that claimant’s injury did not manifest itself until sometime in 2000, when claimant’s pain necessitated medical treatment. 224 Ill. 2d at 74. Thus, the de facto rule established by this case seems to be that, regardless of a claimant’s actual and reasonable awareness of an injury’s manifestation, corroborative medical treatment is necessary before it can be said that a reasonable person would plainly recognize the injury and its causal relationship to his or her employment. This rule creates a puzzling inconsistency, because while the majority claims to maintain a totality of the circumstances approach to determining a repetitive-trauma injury’s manifestation date, it seems to have made the medical diagnosis of such an injury the determinative factor in that inquiry. Claimant is to be commended for continuing to work after the onset of her symptoms. As the majority notes, claimant “diligently worked through progressive pain until it affected her ability to work and required medical treatment.” 224 Ill. 2d at 74. Claimant’s persistence, however, should not excuse her from her obligation to file a timely application for benefits. I fear the majority has allowed this equitable consideration to become the driving force behind its decision to reverse the judgment of the Commission, and that it has done so at the expense of obscuring the heretofore straightforward analysis used in reviewing the Commission’s determination of a manifestation date. For the reasons set forth above, I would affirm the judgment of the appellate court, which upheld the circuit court’s confirmation of the Commission’s decision to deny claimant’s application for benefits. JUSTICE KARMEIER joins in this dissent.