Court Opinion

ID: 9533792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:34:39.57433+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:10.723216
License: Public Domain

BAKES, Justice,
concurring specially.
This is a troublesome case, and the dissenters are justifiably concerned with the result reached on these two claims. However, I do not believe that the problem results from an improper interpretation of the statute by the majority of the Court, or by the claim that the constitutional protection against denial of due process or equal protection has been violated. Rather, the real concern lies in the fact that an occupa*122tional disease which disabled two workmen in less than sixty working days each was determined to be “non-acute” and therefore non-compensable under I.C. § 72-439. If the result in this case is wrong, the wrongness relates to the factual finding of the Industrial Commission that the occupational disease from which these two claimants were suffering was non-acute. However, there is substantial competent evidence to sustain that finding, and accordingly the commission's decision must be affirmed. Idaho Const., Art. 5, § 9; I.C. § 72-732; e.g., Hays v. Amalgamated Sugar Co., 104 Idaho 279, 658 P.2d 950 (1983); Graham v. Larry Donohoe Logging Co., 103 Idaho 824, 654 P.2d 1377 (1982); Ford v. Bonner County School Dist., 101 Idaho 320, 612 P.2d 557 (1980); Maez v. Thunderbird Market, 101 Idaho 128, 609 P.2d 660 (1980) (Supreme Court is bound by Industrial Commission’s findings of fact and review is limited to questions of law).
Nevertheless, it seems to me that in future cases other medical evidence might be available to establish that such short term exposure which results in disability, as has occurred here, might well be acute, rather than non-acute, and the Industrial Commission, as the finder of fact, might so find. That, to me, is the better way to solve a perceived inequity in these types of eases, rather than to disregard the clear meaning of the statute or to over-extend the Constitution in order to try to do justice in these cases.