Court Opinion

ID: 9698600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:55:40.005736+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:42.136024
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
concurring in result.
There was no evidence at all about what volume of toxic gases in the environment is necessary to reduce the level of oxygen in the claimant’s bloodstream so as to contribute to a heart attack. The Bureau’s Finding No. VII acknowledges that the presence of certain gases in the environment “in sufficient quantities,” will affect the health of the heart muscle. The problem is that no one told the Bureau what these “sufficient quantities” were, as a general proposition. While it would be unrealistic to require blood-gas studies of a claimant at the time of heart attack or the precise *825level of noxious fumes in the environment at the time of heart attack to support a claim for compensation, it is not unrealistic to require a claimant to provide the Bureau with the scientific data necessary to inform its decision on causation and to warrant its reliance on circumstantial evidence.
I therefore agree that the Bureau did not err in determining that the claimant did not prove a causal relationship between his heart- attack and an exposure to noxious gases. Accordingly, I concur in the result.
MESCHKE, J., concurs.