Schmidt v. Industrial Commission of Utah ( 1980 )

WILKINS, Justice

(concurring):

I concur that this matter should be remanded and the medical aspects referred to a medical panel. Because, however, of conflicting case law in this State interpreting the statutory requirement that to support an award of compensation a worker must be injured “by accident,” I deem it appropriate to enlarge on the analysis of this point found in the main opinion with a view to providing the Industrial Commission with a consistent standard to apply.

The dissenting opinion of Mr. Chief Justice Crockett centers on the necessity of identifying “an accident” which causes injury. As Professor Arthur Larson (hereafter “Larson”) points out in his treatise, The Law of Workmen’s Compensation (1980), “[t]he basic and indispensable ingredient of ‘accident’ is unexpectedness”.¹ This Court has recognized as much in past cases.² Larson continues:

A second ingredient, however, has been added in most jurisdictions: The injury must be traceable, within reasonable limits, to a definite time, place, and occasion or cause. Justification of this widespread addition is not entirely clear. When the phrase “accidental injury” is used, or the equivalent phrase “injury by accident,” there is no occasion, as a matter of grammar, to read the phrase as if it referred “an accident,” and then proceed to conduct a search for “the accident”.³ (emphasis in original)

The main opinion makes it clear that in Utah “accident” connotes an unlooked for mishap which is not expected or designed.⁴

Mr. Chief Justice Crockett also expresses concern that without the requirement of identifying an accident in compensation cases, “[t]he practical effect would be to make the employer a general insurer of the health and well-being of his employees”. In my view, protection against unwarranted awards for internal failure is not to be found in requiring identification of an accident. Rather protection against such awards is found in requiring a medically demonstrated causal connection between the injury and the employment. With the issue being one primarily of causation, the importance of the statutorily mandated medical panel becomes manifest. It is through the expertise of the medical panel that the Commission should be able to make the determination of whether the injury sustained by a claimant is causally connected or contributed to by the claimant’s employment.

There is no reason to expect that application of the standards laid down in this case will render employers the insurers of the health of their employees. Rather there is every reason to expect that the beneficent and humanitarian purposes of the worker’s compensation act will be effectuated.

STEWART, J., concurs in result.

1 . IB Larson at 7-4, citing inter alia. Residential & Commercial Construction Company v. Industrial Commission, Utah, 529 P.2d 427 (1974).

2 . See, e. g., Purity Biscuit Co. v. Industrial Commission, 115 Utah 1, 201 P.2d 961 (1949); Residential & Commercial Construction Company v. Industrial Commission, supra.

3 . IB Larson at 7-5.

4 . This is the language of the first English case interpreting the English workmen’s compensation act which was adopted in 1897, Fenton v. Thorley & Co., [1903] A.C. 443. Fenton has often been cited in Utah cases including Purity Biscuit.