Court Opinion

ID: 9594237
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:28:19.751233+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:42.866857
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE, Justice,
concurring specially.
We are reviewing an increasing number of worker compensation cases involving back ailments, primarily disc problems. Those cases pose difficult factual questions as to whether or not the claimant has injured his or her back “in the course of their employment,” a condition of compensation pursuant to section 65-05-05, NDCC, and more specifically, whether the injury is a “compensable injury,” defined by section 65-01-02(8), NDCC, to mean “any disease which can be fairly traceable to the employment” but which excludes “Ordinary diseases of life to which the general public outside of the employment is exposed ... except where the disease follows as an incident to, and in its inception is caused by a hazard to which an employee is subjected in the course of his employment.” That statute also excludes from the term “com-pensable injury” an injury “attributable to a preexisting injury, disease, or condition which clearly manifested itself prior to the compensable injury” except “where employment substantially aggravates and acts upon an underlying condition, substantially worsening its severity, or where employment substantially accelerates the progression of an underlying condition.” NDCC § 65-01-02(8)(b)(6). It was because of a similar difficulty in determining cause and effect of employment in heart attack and stroke cases that the Legislature amended the statute to require that injuries due to heart attack and stroke must have been “precipitated by unusual stress” in order that they be deemed a compensable injury. NDCC § 65-01-02(8)(a)(3). See Nelson v. North Dakota Workmen’s Compensation Bureau, 316 N.W.2d 790 (N.D.1982).
Our review of administrative agency decisions is a limited one, as noted in the majority opinion. It is difficult for me to suppose why a reasoning mind could not conclude from the evidence adduced that Roggenbuck’s activity with the stove did substantially contribute to the “acceleration ... or progression of the final result” as stated in section 65-05-15(3), NDCC. Thus Dr. Kennedy stated that it was his opinion that Roggenbuck “likely had a lesser disc herniation in October, 1988, which gave her persistent trouble but it was the September, 1989 incident that really precipitated the operative treatment.” When asked whether he could “say with any reasonable medical certainty that, in the absence of that incidence with the gas stove, her back would have progressed to the same condition that you saw her in” Dr. Kennedy replied “I can’t say that. No.” Compare Sloan v. North Dakota Workers Compensation Bureau, 462 N.W.2d 638 (N.D.1990) [causal connection between work activities and a medical condition is a factual matter].
But the bothersome issue for me is why the majority determines the Bureau could not have reasonably concluded that Rog-genbuck’s activity with the stove “substantially accelerated” the herniation of the disc, irrespective of the probabilities that if it didn’t happen then, it would have happened later. Remembering our standard of review on appeals from decisions of administrative agencies, which severely limits our own view of the evidence, the only manner in which I can reconcile the majority opinion with the evidence on that particular issue is to rationalize that our application of “substantial acceleration” will require affirmative evidence that “but for” the non-work related injury there was no indication that surgery would be imminent. Here, that affirmative evidence was not present. Rather, the need for surgery was imminent before the stove incident. The record reveals that Roggenbuck had been referred to an orthopedic surgeon by the chiropractor only 5 days prior to the incident and further reflects Roggenbuck was moving the stove in order that her children would not have to use a gas stove without a pilot light in preparation for her hospitalization for back surgery.
My concern with this result is that in the reverse instance in which the back condition predates employment and is not em*609ployment related, and the precipitating incident is work related, rather than non-work related, the employee will not be entitled to compensation. Thus section 65-01-02(8), NDCC, quoted at the beginning of this special concurrence, excludes from “com-pensable injury” those injuries attributable to a preexisting disease, injury or condition except where employment “substantially aggravates and acts upon an underlying condition, substantially worsening its severity, or where employment substantially accelerates the progression of an underlying condition.” The obvious similarity between this language in section 65-01-02(8)(a)(3), NDCC, and that in section 65-05-15(3), NDCC, leads me to believe we would necessarily deny compensation in the reverse situation even though the precipitating incident was work related. Despite these misgivings, I concur in the result reached by the majority opinion.