Case ID: mich-app_40/html/0415-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

LEVINSON v PAYSON
    Workmen’s Compensation—Domestic Worker—Voluntary Coverage.
    A domestic worker could not sue her employers where the employers had voluntarily secured workmen’s compensation coverage through the labor broker who has assigned the worker to them (MCLA 418.121).
    Reference for Points in Headnote
    58 Am Jur, Workmen’s Compensation § 106.
    Appeal from Oakland, Clark J. Adams, J.
    Submitted Division 2 March 9, 1972, at Lansing.
    (Docket No. 11060.)
    Decided May 1, 1972.
    Leave to appeal granted and decision of Court of Appeals reversed, 388 Mich 792.
    Complaint by Lorie L. Levinson against Anthony and Lois Payson for damages for injuries received in a fall. Accelerated judgment for defendants. Plaintiff appeals.
    Affirmed.
    
      Gerald R. Hershberger, for plaintiff.
    
      Lacey & Jones (by John Hayes), for defendants.
    Before: Lesinski, C. J., and Bronson and Targonski, JJ.
    
      
       Former circuit judge, sitting on the Court of Appeals by assignment pursuant to Const 1963, art 6, § 23 as amended in 1968.
    
   Per Curiam.

Plaintiff was injured by a fall in defendants’ home where she was a domestic worker. She recovered workmen’s compensation benefits through the labor broker who assigned her to work for defendants. Plaintiff brought this suit against defendants as third-party tortfeasors and appeals an accelerated judgment in their favor.

Plaintiff argues that since she was a domestic worker in defendants’ home, defendants are not liable under the workmen’s compensation act, MCLA 418.118; MSA 17.237(118), and are not protected by it. The unrebutted affidavit accompanying defendants’ motion for accelerated judgment set forth that defendants had, through the labor broker, voluntarily secured workmen’s compensation insurance coverage. This is permissible under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. MCLA 418.121; MSA 17.237(121). On these facts, the case is indistinguishable from and governed by Renfroe v Higgins Rack Coating & Manufacturing Co, Inc, 17 Mich App 259 (1969).

Affirmed.