Case Name: HARDIMAN v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION
Court: Michigan Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1952-01-07
Citations: 332 Mich. 170
Docket Number: Docket No. 21, Calendar No. 44,933
Parties: HARDIMAN v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION.
Judges: Reid, J., concurred with Bushnell, J.
Reporter: Michigan Reports
Volume: 332
Pages: 170–182

Head Matter:
HARDIMAN v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION.
1. Workmen’s Compensation — Occupational Diseases — Proportionate Causes op Disability.
Provision of statute requiring determination of proportionate causes of disability from occupational, disease due to compensable and noncompensable causes does not apply, where affected employee was found to be totally disabled from silicosis complicated by tuberculosis and there was evidence to support finding of workmen’s compensation commission that plaintiff had to quit his work as a core maker because of his silicotic condition; was totally disabled and that the silicosis was due to causes and conditions which are characteristic of and peculiar to defendant’s business and that there was a direct causal relationship between the silicosis and tuberculosis (CL 1948, §417.8)..
2. Same — Occupational Disease — Proportionate Reduction for Subsequent Employment.
Workmen’s compensation for plaintiff core maker should be reduced for period during which he worked as chauffeur after he left defendant’s employ and before he was hospitalized for silicosis and tuberculosis, to conform to the reduction in his earning capacity (CL 1948 §417.3).
3. Same — Total Disability — Silicosis — Tuberculosis — Proportionate Causes op Disability.
Employee, a core maker, who was totally disabled because of silicosis was entitled to workmen’s compensation unaffected by statute relating to determination of proportionate causes of disability because he later became afflicted with tuberculosis which the workmen’s compensation commission found had been caused by the silicosis (CL 1948, § 417.8).
Sharpe and Boyles, JJ., dissenting.
References for Points in IIeadnotes
[1-3] 58 Am Jur, Workmen’s Compensation §§ 246, 247.
Appeal from-Workmen’s Compensation Commission.
Submitted October 3, 1951.
(Docket No. 21, Calendar No. 44,933.)
Decided January 7, 1952.
Arthur Hardiman presented his claim for compensation for occupational disease against General Motors Corporation, Chevrolet Grey Iron Foundry Division. Award to plaintiff. Defendant appeals.
Reversed and remanded for entry of modified award.
Francis L. Robinson (Roihe, Marston, Bohn & Masey, of counsel), for plaintiff.
Henry M. Hogan (R. V. Hachett, G. W. Gloster and E. H. Reynolds, of counsel), for defendant.

Opinion:
Btjshnell, J,
Plaintiff Arthur Hardiman began to work for defendant General Motors Corporation in the Chevrolet Grey Iron Foundry Division, at Saginaw, on July 21,1927, and continued in that employment until he left in November, 1945, because of ill health.
He worked for 15 of these 18 years as a core maker, and at other times was engaged in shaking out and knocking clamps off the casting flasks. He was exposed to dust powder and sand during the course of his employment. Plaintiff testified that during the last 6 months of this period he reported to defendant's first-aid department many times because of his shortness of breath, and on about 25 occasions was sent home.
In January of 1946 Hardiman moved to Detroit, where he worked as a chauffeur until about August of 1947. He was admitted to Fairview sanatorium on September 4, 1947, where he remained under treatment until April 17, 1948.
The physician who attended him at the sanatorium testified that chest X-rays showed that Hardiman had pneumoconiosis (silicosis) and active tuberculosis. He said that "Most silicotics are predisposed t'o tuberculosis, most of them die from tuberculosis." Although the doctor could not tell which occurred first, the silicosis or tuberculosis, he stated that his "guess would be, my opinion, I should say, would be the silicosis, it usually does, in the fact that lie had more silicosis than he had tuberculosis, the chances are that the silicosis preceded the tuberculosis," but that there is no positivo way of determining it.
The medical witness called by the defendant had made an examination of Hardiman in 1938, and found no evidence of pneumoconiosis or silicosis at that time, but he stated that deposits of calcium observed in the lung tissues indicated a healed former childhood tuberculosis (inactive).
The commission affirmed the -deputy's award of compensation at $21 per week from November 23, 1945, until further order, but not to exceed $2,600. It found that Hardiman contracted silicosis in the course of his employment, and reasoned from the medical testimony that a silicotic lung provides a fertile field for the activity of tubercular bacilli. It held that the apportionment provision of section 8 of part 7 of the workmen's compensation act (CL. 1948, § 417.8 [Stat Ann 1950 Rev § 17.227]) is only applicable "where there are 2 separate and distinct diseases in no manner related to each other, both of which contribute to the disablement." This section of the. act reads as follows:
"No compensation shall be payable for an occupational disease if the employee, at the time of entering into the employment of the employer by whom the compensation would otherwise be payable, or thereafter, wilfully and falsely represents in writing that he has not previously suffered from the disease which is the cause of the disability or death. Where- an occupational disease is aggravated by any other disease or infirmity, not itself compensable, or where disability or death from any other cause, not itself compensable, is aggravated, prolonged, accelerated, or in anywise contributed to by an occupational disease, the compensation payable shall be such proportion only of the compensation that would be payable if the occupational disease were the sole cause of the disability or death as such occupational disease, as a causative factor, bearing to all the causes of such disability or death, such reduction in compensation to be effected by reducing the number of weekly payments or the amounts of such payments, as under the circumstances of the particular ease may be for the best interests of the claimant or claimants."
Should the commission have determined the proportion which silicosis bore to tuberculosis as a causative factor of plaintiff's disability?
Defendant cites in this connection Kail v. Field Pontiac-Cadillac Co., 296 Mich 658, and Coombs v. Kirsch Co., 301 Mich 1 (11 NCCA NS 510), both of which are distinguishable. on their facts from the present ease. In the former, a collapse followed exposure to carbon monoxide. Death was the result of pulmonary edema caused by cardiac failure, and the commission found the exposure was only a contributing factor.
In the latter case, Coombs suffered a hernia in the course of his employment, and he also had a recurrence of Malta (undulant) fever. All the experts agreed that the hernia and Malta fever were entirely independent of each other as to manner in which they were contracted or occasioned and as to their effect on each other. But the disability resulted solely from the hernia.
Here, the evidence supports the commission's finding that there "is a direct causal relationship between the silicosis a,nd the tuberculosis," and that Hardiman "is totally disabled from silicosis complicated by tuberculosis." Under this situation the provisions of section 8 of part 7 are not applicable.
Defendant argues here on certiorari that, since plaintiff was able to earn wages as a chauffeur from January 6, 1946, until August of 1947, the compensation awarded should be reduced proportionately to conform to the reduction in his earning capacity.
Under the finding made by the commission that Hardiman "worked as a chauffeur in Detroit during part of 1946 and part of 1947," it was the duty of the commission, under section 3 of part 7 (CL 1948, § 417.3 [Stat Ann 1950 Rev § 17.222]) to determine the proportionate reduction in Hardiman's earning capacity, if any, during that period.
The award is vacated and the cause is remanded for the entry of a proper award. Each party having prevailed, but in part only, no costs will be allowed.
Reid, J., concurred with Bushnell, J.