Court Opinion

ID: 9537921
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:27:11.720871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:55:10.727647
License: Public Domain

TUCKETT, Justice
(dissenting) :
I dissent. It appears from the record that the Commission based its findings in this matter upon the findings of the medical panel. The Commission in its order stated as follows:
The Commission concurs that “Mr. Garner’s death was not caused by exposure to uranium or its byproducts.” Further, that the lung carcinoma of Mr. Garner was not caused by the exposure occasioned by his working in the occupation of a uranium miner.
The medical panel to which this matter was referred by the Commission received evidence and medical data from various sources and thereafter concluded that the evidence was insufficient to establish that the cancer from which Mr. Garner died resulted from his exposure to radon gas or other byproducts of uranium ore. There was some evidence before the panel from which it might have concluded that the de*372cedent’s cancerous condition resulted from his overexposure to radiation while working in the mines. After objections were filed by the plaintiffs to the report of the medical panel, further proceedings were had before the Commission at which time Dr. Elmer L. Kilpatrick, chairman of the panel, was examined by counsel for the respective parties. In response to questions by counsel for the plaintiffs, Dr. Kilpatrick testified in part as follows:
Q. (By counsel) I think we have discussed this once. Assuming that it was there, with the exposure to hazards which you have enumerated here, then would you say — assuming that the cancer was there — would you say that probably this exposure lighted it up, or caused it to go ahead and cause his death in a shorter time than it would have if he hadn’t worked in the mines?
A. No, I wouldn’t use the word “probable”. I would use the word “possible”. And we consider the term “beyond a reasonable doubt” is a pretty good phrase to use.
Q. You mean in Utah, in order to recover, you doctors have to say that it is beyond a reasonable doubt? Is this your understanding?
A. Yes.
Q. I see. And you are not willing to say that beyond a reasonable doubt Mr. Garner died of lung cancer as a result of overexposure to radiation; is this correct?
A. Yes.
Q. And the panel applied that rule in this case; is that right?
A. Among all the other considerations, of course.
It would appear from the foregoing that the medical panel assumed that the plaintiffs had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt the causal connection between the decedent’s exposure to radon gas while working in the mines and his cancerous condition from which he died. The Commission by adopting the report of .the medical panel and its findings in respect to the claims of the plaintiffs adopted the same standard of proof. Neither the statutes nor the decisions of this court require that a claimant has the burden of proving his claim beyond a reasonable doubt.
I am of the opinion that it was prejudicial error .on the part of the Commission to require that the claims of the plaintiffs be established beyond a reasonable doubt. I am in favor of returning the case to the Commission for further proceedings.