Guerrette v. Fraser Paper, Ltd.

• Decision Date: 03 December 1975
• Citation: 348 A.2d 260
• Parties: Gilbert GUERRETTE v. FRASER PAPER, LIMITED.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 260

348 A.2d 260

Gilbert GUERRETTE v. FRASER PAPER, LIMITED.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Dec. 3, 1975.

Alfred E. LaBonty, Jr., Madawaska, for plaintiff.

William J. Smith, Van Buren, for defendant.

Before DUFRESNE, C. J., and WEATHERBEE, POMEROY, WERNICK, ARCHIBALD and DELAHANTY, JJ.

ARCHIBALD, Justice.

This is an appeal from a pro forma decree of the Superior Court which adopted a decree of the Industrial Accident Commission denying compensation to Mr. Guerrette. We deny the appeal.

Mr. Guerrette claimed that while in the employ of Fraser Paper, Limited, and during the course of that employment, he accidentally injured his back. He testified that while climbing a ladder to close malfunctioning elevator doors he attempted to reach these doors, slipped and fell some 'three or four feet' to a cement floor, landing on his back. Some twenty months thereafter an orthopedic surgeon removed a degenerated disc between L 4 and L 5.

The sole issue is whether this surgical procedure was necessitated by the fall, the Commissioner having concluded that 'the evidence is insufficient to conclude that Mr. Guerrette sustained a ruptured disc as a result of the fall alleged in the Petition.'

39 M.R.S.A. § 99 provides in part:

'His (the Commissioner's) decision, in the absence of fraud, upon all questions of fact shall be final but whenever in a decree the commission expressly rules that any party has or has not sustained the burden of proof cast upon him, the said finding shall not be considered a finding of fact but shall be deemed to be a conclusion of law and shall be reviewable as such.' (Emphasis supplied.)

We recognize the Commissioner's finding the evidence 'insufficient' to establish the necessary connection between the appellant's disability and the claimed industrial accident is equivalent to a finding that the claimant had not sustained his burden of proof. If 39 M.R.S.A. § 99 requires us to treat as a conclusion of law any ultimate finding which denies a petitioner relief, then the operative effect of Section 99 would require the Law Court to review the entire record and make findings of fact independent of those made by a commissioner.

In order to comprehend fully the proper scope of appellate review under Section 99, it is necessary to trace the history of this section from the original enactment in 1915.

P.L.1915, ch. 295, § 34, provided:

'His (commissioner's) decision in the absence of fraud, upon all questions of fact shall be final.'

In early cases this Court adhered to the position that the commissioner's findings of fact will not be reversed if supported by some competent evidence. Gauthier's Case, 120 Me. 73, 78, 113 A. 28, 31 (1921); Mailman's Case, 118 Me. 172, 177, 106 A. 606, 608 (1919). However, in Orff's Case, 122 Me. 114, 116, 119 A. 67, 67-68 (1922), the Court, after reasserting that findings of fact are final when found in favor of a petitioner, went on to announce that no such rule prevails when the findings are against the petitioner. The same rule was reiterated in Ferris' Case, 132 Me. 31, 35, 165 A. 160, 162 (1933); see also McNiff v. Town of Old Orchard Beach, 138 Me. 335, 337, 25 A.2d 493, 494 (1942); Weymouth v. Burnham & Morrill Co., 136 Me. 42, 44, 1 A.2d 343, 344-45 (1938).

In a subsequent case this Court overruled the holding in Orff's Case (and its progeny), recognizing there was no statutory authorization for a distinction between findings for or against a petitioner and announced the rule that where 'there was competent evidence in favor of the claimant and of the defendant respectively,' it became the problem of the Commission to determine whether the claimant had sustained the burden of proof, 'a question of fact which cannot be disturbed by this court.' Robitaille's Case, 140 Me. 121, 127, 34 A.2d 473, 475 (1943); see also Houle, Aplt. v. Tondreau and Aetna, 148 Me. 189, 91 A.2d 481 (1952); Albert's Case, 142 Me. 33, 45 A.2d 660 (1946).

In 1961 the 100th Legislature enacted P.L.1961, ch. 316, which is now 39 M.R.S.A. § 99. We have never viewed the 1961 amendment as a restoration of the rule in Orff's Case, ¹ supra. Since 1961 we have repeated the well established principle that we have no authority to deviate from findings of fact, and the reasonable inferences drawn therefrom, made by a commissioner which are supported by competent evidence. Harlow v. Agway, Inc., 327 A.2d 856 (Me.1974); Overlook v. Eastern Fine Paper, Inc., 314 A.2d 56 (Me.1974); Soucy v. Fraser Paper, Limited, 267 A.2d 919 (Me.1970). This has been equally true whether the commissioner's findings were in favor of or against the petitioner. See Bolduc v. Pioneer Plastice Corporation, 302 A.2d 577 (Me.1973); Cote v. Allied Chemical Coatings, Inc., 249 A.2d 528 (Me.1969).

We view the legislative purpose in amending the predecessor to 39 M.R.S.A. § 99 as a desire to eliminate dismissal of petitions on the unexplained ground that a party has failed to sustain his burden of proof. The Commission has the duty to make specific findings of basic ultimate facts upon which its order is predicated. ² In making such findings the Commission establishes an adequate foundation for appellate review, namely, the existence, or nonexistence, of competent evidence. The bare assertion that a petitioner has failed to sustain his burden of proof provides no basis for appellate review, and we have often decried the practice of merely reciting, without adopting or rejecting, the testimony given before the Commission. See, e. g., Bolduc v. Pioneer Plastics Corporation, supra.

We thus conclude that Section 99 authorizes the Law Court to make independent factual evaluations from the record only in those cases where a commissioner has failed to do so and has founded his decision solely on the assertion that a petitioner has failed to sustain the burden of proof.

In the present case the Commissioner did more than merely recite the evidence and conclude that the claimant had failed to sustain his burden of proof. After outlining the testimony given at the various hearings, he concluded that 'there is no definite statement from the medical witnesses that the fall was, in fact, the cause of the disc injury or...