Kostamo v. Marquette Iron Min. Co.
| Decision Date | 12 January 1979 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 8-12,Docket Nos. 56000,56729,56915,56934 and 57479,CLEVELAND-CLIFFS,s. 8-12 |
| Citation | 274 N.W.2d 411,405 Mich. 105 |
| Parties | Onnie T. KOSTAMO, Deceased, by Viola Kostamo, Widow, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MARQUETTE IRON MINING COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. Lois V. BULLARD, Widow of Clarence S. Bullard, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COPCO STEEL & ENGINEERING and Employers Mutual Liability, Defendants-Appellees. Paul J. HANNULA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. TheIRON COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. Jan FISZER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WHITE PINE COPPER COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. Jack JARMAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ATLAS SUPPLY COMPANY and Michigan State Accident Fund, Defendants-Appellants. Calendar |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Marcus, Ruck & Flynn, Muskegon by Lawrence R. Backofen, Muskegon, for plaintiff-appellant Kostamo.
Kelman, Loria, Downing, Schneider & Simpson by Rodger G. Will, Detroit, for plaintiff-appellant Bullard.
Wisti & Jaaskelainen, Hancock by Gordon J. Jaaskelainen, Hancock, James F. Tercha, Calumet, for plaintiffs-appellants Hannula and Fiszen.
Vandeveer, Garzia, Tonkin, Kerr & Heaphy, P. C. by James A. Sullivan, Detroit, for defendants-appellants Atlas Supply Co., etc.
Clancey, Hansen, Davidson, Chilman & Graybill, Ishpeming by Bernard H. Davidson, Walter L. Hansen, Ishpeming, for defendant-appellee Marquette Iron Mining Co.
George E. Ganos, Taylor, for defendants-appellees Copco Steel and Engineering.
Vairo, Mechlin, Tomasi & Johnson by Paul J. Tomasi, Houghton, for defendant-appellee White Pine Copper Co.
Gray & Taylor, P. C. by Loren E. Gray, Mount Pleasant, for plaintiff-appellee Jarman.
Hayim I. Gross, Lacey & Jones, Detroit, for amicus curiae Chrysler Corp., Uniroyal, Inc., Kelsey Hayes Co. and Michigan Bell Telephone Company.
Plunkett, Cooney, Rutt, Watters, Stanczyk & Pedersen by Jeannette A. Paskin, Detroit, for American Ins. Assn.
Kasoff, Young, Gottesman, Kovinsky, Friedman & Walkon, P. C. by Irwin J. Kasoff, District Counsel, United Steelworkers of America, Southfield, for amicus curiae United Steelworkers of America.
James A. Durkin, Thomas W. Watkins, Detroit, for amicus curiae General Motors Corp.; Frazer F. Hilder, Gen. Counsel, Detroit, General Motors Corp., of counsel.
Ford Motor Company by William J. Devers, Jr., Associate Counsel, Detroit, and Thomas P. Chuhran, Detroit, on brief, for Ford Motor Co., amicus curiae.
Michigan Trial Lawyers Association by Jack H. Bindes, Detroit, amicus curiae brief for plaintiffs.
In these consolidated cases the workers had arteriosclerotic heart disease. Kostamo and Bullard had heart attacks and died. Jarman had a heart attack and lived. Fiszer and Hannula offered expert testimony that they had suffered heart attacks but the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board found that they had not.
The WCAB denied compensation to all the claimants except Jarman who, it found, had suffered work-related heart damage and disability. We affirm, except in Kostamo, which we remand for further proceedings.
In Fiszer And Hannula, the issue was whether they had suffered heart damage. The WCAB found that they had not and, therefore, did not reach the question whether the claimed heart damage was work-related.
The worker's compensation law does not provide compensation for a person afflicted by an illness or disease not caused or aggravated by his work or working conditions. Nor is a different result required because debility has progressed to the point where the worker cannot work without pain or injury. Accordingly, compensation cannot be awarded because the worker may suffer heart damage which would be work-related if he continued to work. Unless the work has accelerated or aggravated the illness, disease or deterioration and, thus, contributed to it, or the work, coupled with the illness, disease or deterioration, in fact causes an injury, compensation is not payable.
Arteriosclerosis is an ordinary disease of life which is not caused by work or aggravated by the stress of work. However, stress that would not adversely affect a person who does not have arteriosclerosis may cause a person who has that disease to have a heart attack.
The WCAB found that Fiszer 1 and Hannula 2 had not suffered heart damage. Those findings are supported in the evidence. Therefore, whatever the stress of the jobs, there was no injury. Since stress does not aggravate arteriosclerosis, the WCAB decisions denying them compensation must be affirmed. Although there is a causal relationship between the underlying disability, arteriosclerosis, and Fiszer's and Hannula's inability to continue working, that disability was not caused and could not have been aggravated by their employment.
In Kostamo, Bullard and Jarman, where the workers had heart attacks, the issue was whether the work was a cause of the heart damage. The WCAB found that it was a cause in Jarman but not in Kostamo and Bullard.
In Kostamo, the WCAB adopted the expert testimony offered by the employer that Kostamo's heart attack was "inevitable." In Bullard, it found that there was no evidence that the attack was caused by stress. In Jarman, where it concluded that there was a compensable injury, it found that there was evidence of stress in the employment and adopted the expert testimony offered by Jarman relating the stress to his heart damage.
We affirm in Jarman because there was evidence of job stress and Jarman's expert witness related the stress to the heart damage. The WCAB's opinion and findings are detailed and not conclusory.
In Bullard, no evidence of stress or of the circumstances under which he worked was offered. The expert witness for Bullard's widow assumed that there was stress and gave his opinion based upon such assumptions. There being no evidence that in fact there was stress or of its nature, he could not relate his opinion to actual job stress. The WCAB's conclusion that there was a failure to prove a work-related injury must be affirmed.
The WCAB's sketchy and conclusory opinion adopting the expert testimony offered by the employer that Kostamo's heart attack was inevitable raises as many questions as it answers, and is so inadequate that we remand for further proceedings and findings.
While a heart attack may be inevitable in the sense that the victim will some day have a heart attack, such a statement begs the question whether job stress caused the attack to occur when it did or aggravated the attack and the extent of damage. Although worker's compensation is not payable for the ordinary diseases and infirmities of life, it is payable for work-related acceleration and aggravation of such diseases and infirmities.
Doctors look for the etiological or medical cause; lawyers look for the legal cause. Generalities, such as "inevitable," which may express no more than the medical view of causation, do not assist a trier of fact or reviewing court in deciding whether there is legal causation such that compensation is payable.
In the present state of medical knowledge, we know that stress can cause a heart attack, and that persons who have arteriosclerosis are more likely to suffer heart attacks as a result of stress than those who do not. The stresses that may cause attacks include anxiety, anger, fear, exhilaration, fatigue, and the environment (air, heat, cold).
We know also that it is not possible to determine medically whether particular stress caused a particular injury. Nevertheless compensation may be awarded based on an assessment of the probabilities in light of the background factual circumstances and any opinion testimony. Opinions tentatively expressed may not on that account be discounted. The certainty, or puffery, with which experts express their opinions may mask differing understandings of the factual background and views regarding causation. The answer is to be found in careful scrutiny of the factual background and not in terminology and emphasis. Nor may preclusive effect be given to medical testimony.
Where the issue, as in Kostamo, Jarman and Bullard, is whether job stress caused the injury, there are two inquiries, one factual and the other judgmental.
The factual inquiry concerns the working and other conditions of the worker's life claimed to constitute the stress that assertedly led to the heart attack. The judgmental question is whether the asserted stress did cause the heart attack.
The factual question clearly does not require medical testimony. Anyone familiar with the facts can state them. In Kostamo and Jarman there was testimony of factual circumstances indicating stress, while in Bullard none was offered.
Nor is the judgmental question entirely the province of the medical profession. The trier of facts is permitted to draw natural inferences from all the evidence and testimony, lay and medical, in deciding whether there is the requisite relationship between the asserted stress and the claimed heart attack.
In Kostamo and Jarman the factual background regarding the asserted stress was fully developed, while in Bullard it was not:
A
Onnie T. Kostamo, 62 years old, worked the night shift (approximately 11:30 p. m. to 7:30 a. m.) for the Marquette Iron Mining Company, which had employed him for more than 20 years. His job was to maintain the kiln discharge area.
Kostamo's primary duty was to remove chunks of iron ore which missed the storage hopper as they dropped from the kiln. Failure to keep the area clear would require the shut-down of operations. In removing the chunks, which weighed up to several hundred pounds, Kostamo operated a tractor-shovel. 3
During the occasional periods when no chunks were dropping out of the kiln Kostamo was responsible for hosing down the floor and emptying dust valves on the cooler.
Kostamo's area of responsibility was a room approximately 10 X 15 feet adjacent to the kiln. The atmosphere of the room was hot and dusty (sufficiently dusty to...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Rakestraw v. General Dynamics Land Systems, Inc.
...and symptoms of a preexisting injury or illness that do not constitute a compensable injury was explored in Kostamo v. Marquette Iron Mining Co., 405 Mich. 105, 274 N.W.2d 411 (1979). Kostamo was a consolidation of cases in which the five plaintiffs either suffered a heart attack or experie......
-
Smith v. Michigan Employment Sec. Commission, Docket Nos. 62991
...the testimony it has adopted, the standards followed and the reasoning used to reach its conclusion." Kostamo v. Marquette Iron Mining Co., 405 Mich. 105, 274 N.W.2d 411 (1979). We remand to the board of review 12 for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We retain Having determ......
-
Sobotka v. Chrysler Corp.
...of fact made by the WCAB are binding on this Court if supported by any evidence in the record. Kostamo v. Marquette Iron Mining Co., 405 Mich. 105, 135-136, 274 N.W.2d 411 (1979); M.C.L. § 418.861; M.S.A. § 17.237(861); Const.1963, art. 6, § 28. We may also infer from those findings other f......
-
Wechsler v. Wayne County Road Com'n
...conclusions that we review de novo, People v. Conner 209 Mich.App. 419, 423, 531 N.W.2d 734 (1995). Kostamo v. Marquette Iron Mining Co., 405 Mich. 105, 135, 274 N.W.2d 411 (1979). Likewise, findings regarding mixed questions of law and fact are reviewed on appeal de novo as issues of law. ......