No. 91-549
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA
1993
TOM GILES,
Claimant and Appellant,
-vs-
BOZEMAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS,
Employer,
and
EBI/ORION GROUP,
Defendant, Cross-Appellant
and Respondent.
APPEAL FROM: Workers' Compensation Court,
The Honorable Timothy Reardon, Judge presiding.
COUNSEL OF RECORD:
For Appellant:
Marvin L. Howe; Simonton, Howe & Schneider,
Glendive, Montana
For Respondent:
Joe C. Maynard; Crowley, Haughey, Hanson, Toole
& Dietrich, Billings, Montana
Submitted on Briefs: June 4, 1992
Decided: March 18, 1993
Filed: MAR 1 8 1993
Justice Karla M. Gray delivered the Opinion of the Court.
Tom Giles appeals the findings of fact, conclusions of law,
and judgment of the Workers1 Compensation Court refusing to set
aside a full and final compromise settlement agreement on the basis
of a mutual mistake of material fact. EBI/Orion Group cross-
appeals the courtlsconclusion that the claim was not barred by the
statute of limitations. We affirm.
On June 26, 1987, Tom Giles (Giles) repaired an overhead light
ballast in the course of his employment as a custodian with Bozeman
Public Schools. While dismounting a ladder, Giles swung his leg
over a desk in order to place his foot on the floor. Giles felt a
sharp pain shoot through his back and, later, a tingling sensation
in his legs. Over the next several days Gilesl feet became
completely numb; the numbness extended above his knees.
Giles reported the accident as an industrial injury. Giles'
employer was enrolled under Compensation Plan No. 2 of the Workers1
Compensation Act. Its insurer, EBZ/Orion Group (EBI), accepted
liability for the injury and paid $220.60 in weekly temporary total
disability benefits.
Giles sought medical treatment and diagnosis from a number of
physicians during the subsequent seventeen months. They were
unable to conclusively diagnose his medical condition. Dr. Curt G.
Kurtz, Gilesl family physician, assessed his condition as a nerve
irritation secondary to a twisting motion, but noted that Giles
should be evaluated for multiple sclerosis (MS) if the symptoms
persisted. According to neurologist Herbert E. Prussack, the
symptoms suggested a bilateral nerve irritation, possibly caused by
a midline disc protrusion. Dr. Donald See, a physiatrist,
conducted neurologic, orthopedic, and electrodiagnostic
examinations of Giles' spine and extremities; the results were
normal. Dr. James Johnson, a neurologist, had an MRI performed on
Giles' spine. The MFX indicated possible early disc degeneration,
but did not reveal disc herniations. Neurologist James Harkness
was unable to diagnosis Giles' medical condition definitively.
In September of 1988, Giles requested a lump sum payment from
EBI in the amount of $45,920 as a full and final settlement of
permanent partial disability benefits. After subsequent
negotiations, the parties settled the claim for a lump sum payment
of $40,008.48. The Workers' Compensation Court approved the full
and final compromise settlement agreement on December 20, 1988.
After the settlement was reached, Giles' symptoms became more
severe. Dr. Harkness referred Giles to Dr. Dale Peterson, a
neurologist. On August 8, 1989, Dr. Peterson diagnosed Giles'
medical condition as MS based on the results of an MRI of the
brain. The MS was mild to moderate in severity.
On August 9, 1990, Giles requested that EBI reopen the
settlement agreement; EBI refused. Giles subsequently filed a
petition with the Workers' Compensation Court requesting that the
settlement agreement be set aside due to a mutual mistake of
material fact. Giles alleged that at the time of settlement the
parties mistakenly believed that Giles had injured his lower back
and that he had obtained maximum medical improvement. In addition
to the issues related to mutual mistake, the issues presented to
the Workers' Compensation Court for resolution included whether the
injury caused the MS or caused it to become symptomatic, whether
the MS was a compensable injury, and whether Giles' petition was
barred by the statute of limitations.
The hearing examiner found that there was no mutual mistake of
fact regarding Giles' medical condition. Furthermore, the examiner
concluded that even if a mutual mistake existed regarding the MS,
the mistake was not material to the settlement agreement because of
the complete absence of medical testimony causally linking the
multiple sclerosis to the injury. Finally, the examiner concluded
that Giles' petition was not barred by the statute of limitations.
On October 25, 1991, the Workers1 Compensation Court adopted the
examiner's findings of fact and conclusions of law and entered
judgment accordingly. This appeal follows.
A full and final settlement agreement is a contract which can
be set aside, under principles of contract law, if the parties to
the agreement were operating under a mutual mistake of fact. Rath
v. St. Labre Indian School (1991), 249 Mont. 433, 439, 816 P.2d
1061, 1064. A mistake of fact is statutorily defined:
Mistake of fact is a mistake not caused by the neglect of
a legal duty on the part of the person making the mistake
and consisting in:
(1) an unconscious ignorance or forgetfulness of a fact,
past or present, material to the contract; or
(2) belief in the present existence of a thing material
to the contract which does not exist or in the past
existence of such a thing which has not existed.
Section 28-2-409, MCA. The statutory definition clearly requires
that a mutual mistake concern a material fact before it can serve
as a basis for setting aside the settlement agreement.
Accordingly, we focus on whether the Workers' Compensation Court
erred in concluding that any mutual mistake regarding the MS would
not be material to the settlement agreement because no causation
was established between the MS and the injury. Because of our
resolution of this issue, we need not address the remaining issues.
The Workers' Compensation Court determined that even if Giles
established a mutual mistake regarding his condition at the time
the settlement agreement was entered into, the complete absence of
medical testimony establishing a causal link between the MS and the
injury precluded the reopening of the settlement agreement.
According to the court, Dr. Peterson provided the only medical
testimony regarding causation. He testified that it is not
medically possible that the injury caused the MS to become
symptomatic. Without a showing that the injury caused the MS, the
court concluded that a mutual mistake regarding the MS was not
material to the agreement and, therefore, would not serve as a
basis for reopening the agreement.
Our standard for reviewing a decision of the Workers'
Compensation Court is to determine whether substantial evidence
supports its findings and conclusions. When substantial evidence
exists to support the Workers' Compensation Court, this Court
cannot overturn the decision. Eastman v. Transport, Ins. (Mont.
l992), 843 P.2d 300, 302, 49 St.Rep. 936, 937. Accordingly, we are
limited to determining whether substantial evidence exists in the
record to support the Workers' compensation Court's conclusion of
lack of causation.
Dr. Peterson provided the only medical evidence regarding
whether Giles' injury caused his MS. That testimony is as follows:
Q. [By Giles' attorney] Is it medically possible that
Torn's accident on June 26, 1987, made his MS symptomatic?
A. NO.
Q. Okay. I guess I'm having difficulty with that in
that you indicated that he had an MS attack and it
started on the date that he stepped down from the ladder.
And that's the day his symptoms started. So I guess I'm
-- Do you get what I'm getting at?
A. What is your question?
Q- Why wouldn't, I guess--why wouldn't it be medically
possible that when Tom had his accident, stepped down
from the ladder, twisted his back, and then he had
numbness in his legs, why wouldn't that have caused his
MS to now be symptomatic when there was nothing before?
A. Because this question has been looked at for 20, 25
years in the neurologic literature. MS has to begin
sometime. And in an illness where we're never sure of
the cause, the question of trauma affecting and other
medical disorders causing it have been raised for years
and years. There've been studies done in the neurologic
literature to try to answer the question regarding trauma
and MS, because it comes up from time to time. According
to my reading, the synthesis of the literature currently
is that one is on very tenuous grounds scientifically to
suggest that trauma either by itself causes an MS attack
or exacerbates an MS attack. And that's our current
state of knowledge about it.
Q. [By EBI1s attorney] Is it your opinion that Mr.
Giles' MS was not caused or aggravated by the twisting
injury that he suffered during the course and scope of
his employment?
A. Yes.
Q. Did I correctly hear you that you earlier indicated
that it is not medically possible that the accident
caused the MS to become symptomatic?
A. Yes.
Dr. Peterson's testimony regarding the lack of causation
between Giles' injury and his MS was unequivocal and undisputed.
While acknowledging that experts in the medical field are not sure
of the cause of MS, Dr. Peterson testified that Giles' MS was not
caused by the June, 1987, injury, and that current scientific
knowledge does not support a link between trauma and MS.
On the basis of this record, we conclude that substantial
credible evidence supports the Workers' Compensation Court's
conclusion that the June, 1987, injury did not cause the MS or
cause the MS to become symptomatic. Based on this conclusion, the
Workers' Compensation Court properly determined that any mutual
mistake regarding Giles' condition at the time of the settlement
agreement would not be material to the settlement agreement.
Relying on Moffett v. Bozeman Canning Co. (1933), 95 Mont.
347, 26 P.2d 973, and Conway v. Blackfeet Indian Developers, Inc.
(1983), 205 Mont. 459, 669 P.2d 225, Giles contends that he need
only present evidence relating the date of injury to the onset of
the MS symptoms in order to establish that the injury caused the
MS. He asserts that Moffett and Conwav control here because the
medical evidence presented at the hearing indicated that the cause
of MS is unknown; he further argues that evidence regarding what
may cause MS to become symptomatic is at best extremely tentative
and at worst entirely speculative.
We note at the outset that Moffett and Conwav do not stand for
the proposition that a mere coincidence in time between an injury
and the onset of disease symptoms mandates a determination that
sufficient causal connection has been established. In both cases,
the issue was whether sufficient evidence existed of a link between
the injury and the disease--Parkinson's in Moffett, and MS in
Conwav--to support a judgment in favor of the claimant. We
concluded in both cases that the indirect and circumstantial
evidence of record was sufficient to uphold the judgment where
direct evidence of causation was impossible to produce because of
the state of medical knowledge. Here, the Workers' Compensation
Court was not persuaded by the totality of the evidence produced
that a causal link existed between Giles' injury and the MS, and we
have concluded that the record is sufficient to support the court.
Furthermore, Moffett and Conway are distinguishable from the
present case on the basis of the record in each. There, the
medical witnesses gave conflicting testimony as to any connection
between the injury and the disease. Moffett, 26 P.2d at 975;
Conwav, 669 P.2d at 226-27. In addition, in Moffett the record
indicated that while medical science could not definitely establish
the cause of the disease in an individual, the medical
llauthorities'l
generally agreed that there was a strong link between
a trauma and the disease. Moffett, 26 P.2d at 978. In Conway, the
question of whether trauma does or does not cause MS to become
symptomatic was altogether "medically undemonstrable." Conway, 669
P.2d at 229-30.
No conflicting medical testimony exists on the record in this
case. Dr. Peterson testified conclusively that Giles' injury did
not cause or precipitate his MS; he further testified that it was
not medically possible that Giles' accident caused the MS to become
symptomatic. Finally, according to the evidence before us, current
medical knowledge no longer supports a link between trauma and MS.
We hold that the Workers' Compensation Court did not err in
declining to set aside the settlement agreement on the basis of a
mutual mistake of material fact.
Af finned.
We concur:
& 7rk ,
4 -- P Chief Justice
March 18, 1993
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that the following order was sent by United States mail, prepaid, to the following
named:
Marvin L. Howe
SIMONTON, HOWE & SCHNEIDER
P.O. Box 1250
Glendive, Mt 59330
JOE C. MAYNARD
Crowley, Haughey, Hanson, Toole & Dietrich
P.O. Box 2529
Billings, MT 59103-2529
ED SMITH
CLERK OF THE SUPREME COURT
BY: