Case Name: PULVER v. DUNDEE CEMENT COMPANY
Court: Michigan Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1992-09-21
Citations: 196 Mich. App. 91
Docket Number: Docket No. 137082
Parties: PULVER v DUNDEE CEMENT COMPANY
Judges: Before: Weaver, P.J., and Wahls and Taylor, JJ.
Reporter: Michigan appeals reports; cases decided in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Volume: 196
Pages: 91–97

Head Matter:
PULVER v DUNDEE CEMENT COMPANY
Docket No. 137082.
Submitted June 2, 1992, at Lansing.
Decided September 21, 1992, at 9:05 a.m.
Leave to appeal sought.
Carolyne L. Pulver sought a hearing before the Bureau of Work- • ers’ Disability Compensation after Dundee Cement Company terminated voluntary payments of workers’ compensation benefits to her on the ground that she refused its offer of favored work without good and reasonable cause. MCL 418.301(5)(a); MSA 17.237(301)(5)(a). The offer was for employment in Michigan, and was made immediately after Pulver had moved to Florida. A hearing referee determined that, although the offer was bona fide and was for reasonable employment, Pulver had reasonably refused it, thereby entitling her to continued workers’ compensation benefits. The Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board affirmed. Dundee appealed by leave granted.
The Court of Appeals held:
An employee may refuse an offer of favored work and maintain eligibility for workers’ compensation benefits only where the refusal furthers the purposes of the workers’ compensation act, one of which is to have the employee return to gainful employment as soon as possible. An employee who moves from the locality of favored work, unless there is employment at the new location, thwarts the purposes of the act in rejecting an offer of favored work. Because Pulver had no employment in Florida, she had to accept the offer of favored work or lose workers’ compensation benefits.
Reversed.
Wahls, J., dissenting, stated that, in light of the timing of Dundee’s offer and the great distance between Pulver’s residence and the location of the offered employment, the offer was not reasonable, and Pulver’s refusal was for good and reasonable cause.
Workers’ Compensation — Offers of Favored Work — Unreasonable Refusal.
A disabled employee who relocates while receiving workers’ compensation benefits, does not secure employment at the new location, and is extended a bona fide offer of favored work by. the employer must accept the offer or forgo benefits (MCL 418.301[5][a]; MSA 17.237[301][5][a]).
References
Am Jur 2d, Workers’ Compensation §§ 399, 431.
See the Index to Annotations under Workers’ Compensation.
Zamler, Mellen & Shiffman, P.C. (by Joel Jonas), for the plaintiff.
Keller, Thoma, Schwarze, Schwarze, DuBay & Katz, P.C. (by Thomas L. Fleury and Christopher M. Murray), for the defendant.
Before: Weaver, P.J., and Wahls and Taylor, JJ.

Opinion:
Taylor, J.
Plaintiff injured her left hand in the course of employment with defendant in August 1984. Defendant voluntarily paid workers' compensation benefits to her. She never returned to work for more than a half-day, and eventually moved to Florida. Plaintiff did not work while in Florida, and defendant continued to pay her workers' compensation benefits. Shortly after her move, defendant offered plaintiff favored work. Although she initially accepted the offer, she did not return. Defendant terminated her benefits, and plaintiff sought redress, arguing that her refusal to accept the favored work was reasonable and that defendant should not be relieved of its duty to pay her workers' compensation benefits.
At the time of plaintiff's injury, MCL 418.301; MSA 17.237(301), being § 301 of the Workers' Disability Compensation Act, provided:
(5) If disability is established . . . entitlement to weekly wage loss benefits shall be determined pursuant to this section and as follows:
(a) If an employee receives a bona fide offer of reasonable employment from a previous employer . . . and the employee refuses that employment without good and reasonable cause, the employee shall be considered to have voluntarily removed . . . herself from the work force and is no longer entitled to any wage loss benefits under this act during the period of such refusal.
(9) "Reasonable employment", as used in this section, means work that is within the employee's capacity to perform that poses no clear and proximate threat to that employee's health and safety, and that is within a reasonable distance from that employee's residence. . . .
The hearing referee found that under § 17 5(a) the offer of favored work was a bona fide offer of reasonable employment, but that plaintiff had reasonably refused it. Accordingly, the referee granted plaintiff an open award of benefits. On defendant's appeal, the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board found that neither party had acted unreasonably or in bad faith because the problem was simply one of miscommunication.
The only disputed issue properly before us in this appeal is whether plaintiff unreasonably refused defendant's bona fide offer of favored work. We conclude that the appeal board's decision that plaintiff is entitled to continuing benefits because her refusal of favored work was reasonable is based on an error of law and should therefore be reversed. Cox v Schreiber Corp, 188 Mich App 252, 256; 469 NW2d 30 (1991).
- The favored-work doctrine was originally a purely judicial creation. Bower v Whitehall Leather Co, 412 Mich 172, 182; 312 NW2d 640 (1981). The heart of the doctrine, as it developed from the 1930s, was that the purpose of the Workers' Disability Compensation Act was not merely to compensate an employee while incapacitated, but also was in the interest of the employer, the employee, and the public to have the employee return to gainful employment as soon as possible. DeTroyer v Ernst Kern Co, 282 Mich 689, 694; 277 NW 199 (1937); Lynch v Briggs Mfg Co, 329 Mich 168, 172; 45 NW2d 20 (1950); Pulley v Detroit Engineering & Machine Co, 378 Mich 418; 145 NW2d 40 (1966); Bower, supra, 182, 191. Regarding the ability of the employee to refuse favored work, the Bower Court held that the employee could refuse the favored work only if the refusal furthered the policies of the act. In so holding, the Court discussed the fact that removing oneself from the locality of the favored work, unless there was employment in the other place, served to thwart those policies. Id., 196.
Within a year of the decision in Bower, the favored-work doctrine was codified in an amendment of the Workers' Disability Compensation Act, with the Legislature clearly intending to incorporate the doctrine in the statute. In this effort, the Legislature did not define "good and reasonable cause" for refusing favored work; thus, the Bower standard of testing a refusal on the basis of the stated purposes of the favored-work doctrine affords the only reasonable indicator of legislative intent. Using that standard, it is clear that, inasmuch as plaintiff did not have employment in Florida, her choices, when favored work was offered by defendant, were to accept such work or have her disability benefits terminated. Any other resolution would be contrary to the purpose of the act, as interpreted by our Supreme Court and as enacted, in acquiescence to that interpretation, by the Legislature.
In this case, plaintiff's actions did not further the policies of the act, and her refusal of favored work was therefore unreasonable. Accordingly, the decision of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board awarding benefits to plaintiff is reversed.
Weaver, P.J., concurred.
MCL 418.101 et seq.; MSA 17.237(101) et seq.