Case Name: DEAN v. CHRYSLER CORPORATION
Court: Michigan Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1990-05-15
Citations: 434 Mich. 655
Docket Number: Docket No. 84065
Parties: DEAN v CHRYSLER CORPORATION
Judges: Riley, C.J., and Levin and Brickley, JJ., concurred with Griffin, J.
Reporter: Michigan Reports
Volume: 434
Pages: 655–690

Head Matter:
DEAN v CHRYSLER CORPORATION
Docket No. 84065.
Argued November 7, 1989
(Calendar No. 7).
Decided May 15, 1990.
Rehearing denied 435 Mich 1204.
Corrine Dean was awarded workers’ compensation benefits for injuries which arose in the course of her employment with Chrysler Corporation and for injuries subsequently sustained in a vehicular accident while en route to a doctor’s office for the purpose of seeking further medical treatment for the original compensable injury. The Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board affirmed, finding the subsequent injuries to be a consequence of the original. The Court of Appeals, Sawyer, P.J., and Maher and T. M. Burns, JJ., reversed in an unpublished opinion per curiam, relying on Rucker v Michigan Smelting & Reñning Co, 300 Mich 668 (1942) (Docket No. 98898). The plaintiff appeals.
In an opinion by Justice Griffin, joined by Chief Justice Riley and Justices Levin and Brickley, the Supreme Court held:
An injury incurred in a motor vehicle accident while en route for medical treatment of a prior injury compensable under the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act is not itself covered by workers’ compensation.
1. Eligibility for compensation under the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act, as construed by Rucker, has always been limited to injuries arising out of and in the course of employment. When the no-fault system was enacted in 1972, a subsequent injury incurred in a motor vehicle accident while en route for medical treatment of a prior injury compensable under the workers’ compensation act was not covered by workers’ compensation. Rather, the Legislature intended that the costs of such accidents were to be born by the no-fault system.
2. Because Rucker was settled law in 1972 when the no-fault act was passed, there was no reason for the Legislature to anticipate an extension of workers’ compensation liability to injuries incurred in a motor vehicle accident otherwise covered by the no-fault act. Despite numerous opportunities to disturb the decision in Rucker, the Legislature has never seen fit to do so.
References
Am Jur 2d, Workmen’s Compensation §§ 313, 333.
See the Index to Annotations under Ambulances; Automobiles and Highway Traffic; Workers’ Compensation.
Affirmed.
Justice Archer, joined by Justice Cavanagh, dissenting, stated that injuries arise out of and in the course of employment when they are the result of reasonable and necessary actions taken because of a previous compensable injury. Where a person is injured in an accident while en route to seek medical treatment for a prior compensable injury, the injuries arising out of that accident should be compensable under the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act.
Rucker is no longer good law in Michigan. The theories on which it was based have been excised from jurisprudence interpreting the meaning of "arising out of and in the course of” employment. Proximate cause is no longer the test for compensability under the workers’ compensation act; nor are the "peculiar and increased street risk” or "act of God” rules discussed in Rucker currently valid in Michigan.
The quasi-course of employment test incorporates the “arising out of” and "in the course of” employment tests. A subsequent injury, whether an aggravation of the original injury or a new and distinct injury, is compensable if it is the direct and natural result of the primary injury. For an injury subsequent to an injury on the job also to be compensable, it is not necessary that employment proximately caused the second injury. Rather, such an injury is compensable when it arises out of activities which are reasonable and necessary in light of the compensable injury. While a claimant’s negligence in causing the second injury will not break the chain of causation, the claimant’s intentional conduct which causes the second injury, where the conduct may be regarded as expressly or impliedly prohibited by the employer, will break the chain. In this case, the claimant’s trip to seek further care for her original compensable injury was both reasonable and necessary in light of the original injuries and thus also should be compensable.
Justice Boyle, dissenting, also would adopt the quasi-course of employment test to determine whether the plaintiff’s injuries are compensable under the workers’ compensation act. However, remand to the wcab is required for further findings of crucial facts. The wcab made no finding on the question whether the plaintiff’s accident was caused by her intentional conduct which might be regarded as having been expressly or impliedly prohibited by her employer.
Workers’ Compensation — Compensable Injuries — Subsequent Injuries.
An injury incurred in a motor vehicle accident while en route for medical treatment of a prior injury compensable under the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act is not itself covered by workers’ compensation.
Mancini, Schreuder, Kline & Conrad, P.C. (by Roger R. Kline), for the plaintiff.
Lacey & Jones (by Stephen Jay Schwartz) for the defendant.

Opinion:
Griffin, J.
Plaintiff seeks workers' compensation benefits for injuries incurred in an automobile accident while traveling from home to her doctor's office where she was to receive treatment for a prior work-related compensable injury. Nearly half a century ago, in Rucker v Michigan Smelting & Refining Co, 300 Mich 668; 2 NW2d 808 (1942), this Court held that a subsequent injury sustained under similar circumstances was not compensable because it did not arise "out of and in the course of employment" within the meaning of the act. In this appeal we are asked to extend workers' compensation coverage to include plaintiff's automobile accident injuries. Taking into account that Rucker was the law in 1972 when the Legislature passed the no-fault act, which allocated costs as between the no-fault and workers' compensation system, and noting that the Legislature, despite numerous opportunities to do so, has left undisturbed our holding in Rucker, we decline to overrule it. Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
i
While engaged in defendant Chrysler's employ on April 1, 1978, plaintiff Corrine Dean suffered a work-related injury when an explosion hurled a piece of metal against her leg. Defendant does not dispute that this injury is compensable under the Workers' Disability Compensation Act. Plaintiff returned to work around May 19, 1978, and was placed on restricted or favored-work status. Plaintiff did not report to work on June 28, 1978, in order to attend an appointment with her personal physician to review the results of lab tests and receive further treatment in connection with the prior work-related leg injury. While en route from home to her physician's office plaintiff sustained multiple injuries in a one-car motor vehicle accident in which her car apparently flipped over a concrete barrier.
In addition to workers' disability compensation for the workplace leg injury, which is not contested, plaintiff seeks coverage under the act for the injuries sustained in the June 28, 1978, motor vehicle accident. A hearing referee found that although "plaintiff's injury, while travelling to the doctor's office [did] not constitute a new compensable injury . it [was] a consequence of the origi nal injury and the disability . . . therefore, [was] compensable as resultant therefrom." The wcab affirmed with modifications not relevant to this appeal.
Subsequently, a unanimous panel of the Court of Appeals reversed in an unpublished per curiam opinion. Finding that Rucker controlled, the Court concluded that the injuries sustained in the automobile accident did not arise out of and in the course of plaintiff's employment because they were not the direct and natural result of the compensable primary injury.
Plaintiff's initial application to this Court for leave to appeal was denied. 431 Mich 913 (1988). However, plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration, and we then granted leave to appeal. 432 Mich 921 (1989).
ii
In Rucker, supra, the plaintiff suffered a work-connected injury while in the defendant's employ and was sent to a doctor who treated the injury. Afterwards, the doctor sent the plaintiff home in a taxicab at the expense of the defendant's insurer. While en route, the cab was involved in a collision, resulting in an injury to the plaintiff's eye. In determining whether the accident which occasioned the plaintiff's eye injury "arose out of and in the course of his employment," the Rucker Court stated the general rule that injuries arise out of the employment
"[w]hen there is apparent to the rational mind, upon consideration of all the circumstances, a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed, and the resulting injury. Under this test, if the injury can be seen to have followed as a natural incident of the work and to have been contemplated by a reasonable person familiar with the whole situation as a result of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the employment, then it arises 'out of' the employment. But it excludes an injury which cannot fairly be traced to the employment as a contributing proximate cause and which comes from a hazard to which the workman would have been equally exposed apart from the employment." [300 Mich 671, quoting Appleford v Kimmel, 297 Mich 8, 12; 296 NW 861 (1941).]
The Rucker Court unanimously held that there was "no causal connection" between the prior work-related injury and the injury suffered in the taxicab collision. 300 Mich 672 (emphasis added). Although Rucker is virtually indistinguishable, plaintiff in this case urges that Rucker no longer controls. It is claimed that Rucker was overruled by the plurality decision in Whetro v Awkerman, 383 Mich 235; 174 NW2d 783 (1970), to the extent that Rucker required a proximate cause between the injury and employment. In Whetro, three members of this Court stated "that the law in Michigan today no longer requires the establishment of a proximately causal connection between the employment and the injury to entitle a claimant to compensation." Id. at 242.
We reject the argument that Whetro had such an effect with respect to a subsequent injury that occurs away from the workplace. Aside from the fact that the Whetro plurality opinion is not prece dent, it simply does not address the question of compensability of such a second or subsequent injury.
Whetro is distinguishable from Rucker on two grounds. First, the Whetro claimant was injured when a tornado destroyed the building "wherein he was working for his employer . . . ." Id. at 239. (Emphasis added.) Thus, unlike the employee in Rucker and in this case, the claimant in Whetro was actually engaged in his employer's business when he was injured.
Secondly, Whetro's focus was not on a second or subsequent injury; rather, the question there was whether the first, and only, injury was compensable. By contrast, the issue in this case, as in Rucker, is whether a second or subsequent injury is compensable. Accordingly, Whetro did not overrule Rucker, expressly or by implication.
In his treatise on workmen's compensation, Professor Larson recognizes that the causation rules applicable to a workplace primary injury are not the same as the causation principles which should apply to a second or subsequent injury that occurs away from the workplace. As Larson explains:
A distinction must be observed between causa tion rules affecting the primary injury . . . and causation rules that determine how far the range of compensable consequences is carried, once the primary injury is causally connected with the employment. As to the primary injury, it has been shown that the "arising" test is a unique one quite unrelated to common-law concepts of legal cause, and it will be shown later that the employee's own contributory negligence is ordinarily not an intervening cause preventing initial compensability. But when the question is whether compensability should be extended to a subsequent injury or aggravation related in some way to the primary injury, the rules that come into play are essentially based upon the concepts of "direct and natural results," and of claimant's own conduct as an independent intervening cause. [1 Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law, § 13.11, p 3-502. Emphasis added.]
"The basic rule" to be applied to second injury cases according to Professor Larson
is that a subsequent injury, whether an aggravation of the original injury or a new and distinct injury, is compensable if it is the direct and natural result of a compensable primary injury. [Id., p 3-503. Emphasis added.]
However, Larson is required to concede that the "basic rule" is inadequate to justify compensation for most second injuries because, "in the strict sense, none of the consequential injuries we are concerned with are in the course of employment . . . ." Id., § 13.11(d), p 3-542. Thus, Larson finds it "necessary to contrive" a new "quasi-course of employment" concept for analyzing the more difficult cases:
By this expression [quasi-course of employment] is meant activities undertaken by the employee following upon his injury which, although they take place outside the time and space limits of the employment, and would not be considered employment activities for usual purposes, are nevertheless related to the employment in the sense that they are necessary or reasonable activities that would not have been undertaken but for the compensable injury. [Id.]
In further explanation of his "quasi-course of employment" approach, Larson states:
There is no intention at this point to suggest that the formulation here worked out is drawn from the pronouncements of actual cases. On the contrary, the reported opinions have developed no satisfactory overall analysis of the problem. However, if one looks at the actual holdings, one can find considerable support for the proposition that the pattern of principle here developed is not out of line with the main body of case law on the subject. [Id., p 3-546.]
While it may be true, as the dissent contends, that a tally of the decisions by courts in other jurisdictions would show that a slight majority line up with the approach taken by Professor Larson, that alone could hardly serve as a principled basis for reversal of the rule in Rucker. Such reasoning would disregard our duty to construe a statute so as to give effect to the Legislature's intent. As stated in McKinstry v Valley OB-GYN Clinic, PC, 428 Mich 167, 190-191; 405 NW2d 88 (1987):
"In the interpretation of statutes, the legislative will is the all-important or controlling factor. Indeed, it is frequently stated in effect that the intention of the legislature constitutes the law. Accordingly, the primary rule of construction of statutes is to ascertain and declare the intention of the legislature, and to carry such intention into effect to the fullest degree. A construction adopted should not be such as to nullify, destroy, or defeat the intention of the legislature." [Quoting 73 Am Jur 2d, Statutes, § 145, p 351.]
When, over a period of many years, the Legislature has acquiesced in this Court's construction of a statute, the judicial power to change that interpretation ought to be exercised with great restraint. On more than one occasion our Court has quoted with approval the statement that stare decisis
"is especially applicable where the construction placed on a statute by previous decisions has been long acquiesced in by the legislature, by its continued use or failure to change the language of the statute so construed, the power to change the law as interpreted being regarded, in such circumstances, as one to be exercised solely by the legislature." [Consumers Power Co v Muskegon Co, 346 Mich 243, 251; 78 NW2d 223 (1956), quoting 21 CJS, Courts, § 214, pp 388-390. See also In re Clayton Estate, 343 Mich 101, 107; 72 NW2d 1 (1955).][ ]
To the extent that prolonged acquiescence suggests legislative approval of the construction given by this Court to a statutory provision, it is reinforced when the Legislature reenacts the statutory language without change. In Smith v Detroit, 388 Mich 637, 650-651; 202 NW2d 300 (1972), we said:
"Even more persuasive is the rule that where the basic provisions of a statute have been construed by the courts and these provisions are subsequently reenacted by the legislature, it may be assumed that the legislature acted with knowledge of the Court's decisions and that the legislature intended the reenacted statute to carry the Court's interpretation with it." [Emphasis in original.][ ]
Not only has the Legislature convened many times since Rucker was decided in 1942, but the Legislature on numerous occasions has revised and amended the act. However, the Legislature has never seen fit to make a substantive change in the "out of and in the course of employment" requirement, nor has it undermined in any way this Court's construction and application of that language in Rucker, decided nearly half a century ago.
Moreover, we believe that our decision today is consistent with the intent of the Legislature manifested by its reform efforts during the past decade. A purpose of the comprehensive 1980 and 1981 revisions of the workers' compensation system was to overturn or modify expansive interpretations placed upon the act by this Court. Although the dollar amount of benefits payable to workers eligible for compensation was increased, there can be no doubt that the Legislature also intended through its 1980 and 1981 reform efforts to narrow and restrict the eligibility qualifications. Against that background, and in light of the fact that the Legislature has never seen fit to disturb the rule in Rucker, we decline to overrule it because we believe that the Legislature intended the result we reach today.
m
To hold that Rucker no longer controls the disposition of this case would not only require that we disregard legislative intent but it would have the effect of usurping legislative responsibility in an important respect. When the no-fault system was enacted in 1972, Rucker was the controlling law; it stood for the proposition that a subsequent injury incurred in a motor vehicle accident while en route for treatment of a prior compensable injury was not covered by workers' compensation. Thus, the Legislature's allocation of costs as between the no-fault and workers' compensation systems was made with an awareness that the no- fault insurance system would shoulder the cost of such accidents.
Justice Levin's reasoning in joining to form a majority for the result in McClure v General Motors (On Rehearing), 408 Mich 191, 210; 289 NW2d 631 (1980), which involved an off-premises lunchtime accident, is directly applicable to the instant case. As he then explained,
Under the case law extant when the no-fault insurance act was enacted, employers were not generally liable for off-premises lunchtime injuries and thus, under the act, the motor vehicle insurer of the worker or a family member would ordinarily bear the entire cost of motor vehicle injuries during the lunch period. An extension today of worker's compensation coverage to lunchtime automobile injuries would, because of § 3109 of the no-fault act, allow the motor vehicle carrier a deduction for worker's compensation benefits payable and thus work a reallocation, probably unforeseen by the Legislature, of the cost of insurance reparations for such accidents from the no-fault system to the worker's compensation system. This Court should not disturb the cost allocation extant when the no-fault act was enacted.
Justice Levin further explained,
It is no answer to say that because the purpose of § 3109 was to reduce the cost of no-fault insurance, a reallocation of the cost of [such] motor vehicle accidents away from the no-fault system furthers the Legislature's purpose. The legislative decision embodied in § 3109 may have been based on assumptions regarding the existing costs to the worker's compensation system that did not include payment for [such] automobile injuries generally. An extension of worker's compensation liability to [such] automobile injuries not previously covered would impose on that system the greater part of the burden of providing insurance reparations for injuries heretofore compensated through the motor vehicle insurance system. [Id. at 229.]
As in the case of the off-premises lunchtime accident addressed in McClure, overturning Rucker would, for the first time, charge to the workers' compensation system the cost of injuries sustained in motor vehicle accidents while en route for treatment of a prior compensable injury. Because Rucker was settled law in 1972 when the no-fault act was passed, the Legislature had no reason to anticipate such an extension of workers' compensation liability to injuries incurred in a motor vehicle accident otherwise covered by the no-fault act. The result advocated by plaintiff would necessarily work a reallocation of the costs associated with such motor vehicle accidents as between the no-fault and workers' compensation systems, without clear direction from the Legislature.
For these reasons, and on the authority of Rucker, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Riley, C.J., and Levin and Brickley, JJ., concurred with Griffin, J.
MCL 418.101 et seq.; MSA 17.237(101) et seq.
MCL 418.301; MSA 17.237(301) provides:
An employee, who receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment by an employer who is subject to this act at the time of the injury, shall be paid compensation as provided in this act.
MCL 500.3101 et seq.; MSA 24.13101 et seq.
We note that a distinction has been made between "aggravation" of a preexisting compensable injury and a subsequent injury which is distinct from the prior work-related injury. See 1 Larson, Workmen's Compensation Law, § 13.11, p 3-348.91. In the past we have held that aggravation of a preexisting occupational disease is also compensable. Braxton v Chevrolet Grey Iron Foundry Div of General Motors Corp, 396 Mich 685; 242 NW2d 420 (1976). However, Ms. Dean does not allege that the injuries she received in the automobile accident were an "aggravation" of the prior work-related leg injury.
Docket No. 98898, decided August 10,1988.
Justice Black "would" have supported the reasoning of the lead opinion in Whetro had the "question not been previously decided . . . ." However, since the question had been "settled by a series of unanimous decisions of this Court," 383 Mich 245, Justice Black's rationale for providing the fourth vote for affirmance was merely to "attain some judgment of a case in which the Court finds itself fractured into indecisive groups . . . 383 Mich 248.
A "majority of the Court must agree on a ground for decision in order to make that binding precedent for future decisions." People v Anderson, 389 Mich 155, 170; 205 NW2d 461 (1973). See also Groening v McCambridge, 282 Mich 135, 140; 275 NW 795 (1937), Breckon v Franklin Fuel Co, 383 Mich 251, 278; 174 NW2d 836 (1970), In re Curzenski Estate, 384 Mich 334, 336; 183 NW2d 220 (1971), Negri v Slotkin, 397 Mich 105, 109; 244 NW2d 98 (1976), and Apportionment of Wayne Co Bd of Comm'rs—1982, 413 Mich 224, 249-250; 321 NW2d 615 (1982).
In a companion case, Emery v Huge Co, the employee was "killed when the motel in which he was staying while on a business trip for his employer was destroyed by the tornado . . . ." Whetro, supra at 239-240 (emphasis added).
In Rucker, supra at 672, the Court rejected the argument that the employee was still, at the time of the subsequent injury, under the control of his employer.
Although Professor Larson states that courts have usually found a sufficient causal nexus merely because the prior injury occasioned the trip to the doctor, Larson, supra, § 13.13, p 3-564, in many of the cases cited by Larson a much stronger causal nexus was present. See, e.g., Taylor v Centex Construction Co, 191 Kan 130; 379 P2d 217 (1963) (the claimant's supervisor directed him to report to a certain doctor, the trip was on company time and company pay, gasoline for the trip was provided by the employer, and the accident occurred while claimant was returning to work); Charles N Clark Associates, Ltd v Robinson, 357 So 2d 924 (Miss, 1978) (the employer authorized and suggested that the claimant should see a doctor and offered to pay for the time missed); Bettasso v Snow-Hill Coal Corp, 135 Ind App 396; 189 NE2d 833 (1963) (the employer placed the claimant in an ambulance which was then involved in an accident as a result of slowing down for the company doctor); Augustine v NYS Elmira Correctional Facility, 64 AD2d 340; 410 NYS2d 141 (1978) (a department of the employer ordered the claimant to submit to an examination).
" 'Stare decisis is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right. This is commonly true even where the error is a matter of serious concern, provided correction can be had by legislation.' " Abendschein v Farrell, 382 Mich 510, 517; 170 NW2d 137 (1969) (citations omitted, quoting Burnet v Coronado Oil & Gas Co, 285 US 393; 52 S Ct 443; 76 L Ed 815 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). See also In re Clayton Estate, supra at 107; Consumers Power Co v Muskegon Co, supra at 251; Whetro v Awkerman, supra at 247 (Black, J., for affirmance).
In Sheppard v Michigan Nat'l Bank, 348 Mich 577, 631-632; 83 NW2d 614 (1957), Chief Justice Dethmers, concurring, wrote:
Where a statutory provision is re-enacted without change in language, it must be presumed that the action was taken in light of prior judicial construction placed upon it and with the intent to adopt such construction. When the Supreme Court has placed an interpretation on a statute over a considerable period of years it may indulge in the judicial assumption that the legislature has been content with that interpretation because of its failure to exercise its independent prerogative to restate the provision. [Citations omitted.]
See also Magreta v Ambassador Steel Co, 380 Mich 513, 520; 158 NW2d 473 (1968) (" 'The silence of the legislature . to this Court's interpretation of its intent . . . can only be construed as consent to the accuracy of that interpretation' ").
See, e.g., 1943 PA 245; 1954 PA 175; 1969 PA 317; 1980 PA 357; 1981 PA 200; 1984 PA 304; 1985 PA 103; 1987 PA 28.
The Workers' Disability Compensation Act originated in 1912 (1st Ex Sess) PA 10. Over the years, the relevant statutory provision requiring that, to be compensable, the injury must arise out of and in the course of employment, has remained largely unchanged. The original statute provided:
If an employe . . . receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment by an employer . he shall be paid compensation in the manner and to the extent hereinafter provided .
The statute was amended by 1943 PA 245 to provide, in part, "An employe, who receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment by an employer . . . ."
The statute was amended once again by 1954 PA 175; however, the relevant phrase was not changed.
In 1969 PA 317, the Legislature revised and consolidated the workers' compensation act. Section 301 provided: "An employee, who receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment by an employer . . . ."
1980 PA 357; 1981 PA 192; 1981 PA 193; 1981 PA 194; 1981 PA 195; 1981 PA 196; 1981 PA 197; 1981 PA 198; 1981 PA 199; 1981 PA 200; 1981 PA 201; 1981 PA 202; 1981 PA 203.
In general, see Booms & Salter, Workers' disability compensation, 27 Wayne L R 1035, 1053-1054 (1981).
That a line of this Court's decisions, handed down prior to 1980, "expanded and broadened the sweep of workers' compensation coverage" was acknowledged in McClure v General Motors Corp (On Rehearing), 408 Mich 191, 203; 289 NW2d 631 (1980) (opinion of Ryan, J.). For a list of this Court's decisions, regarded by Justice Ryan as having had that effect, see id. at 203, n 4.
See Senate Analysis Section, SB 1044, January 7, 1981; 1980 Journal of the Senate 3439-3440 (statement of Senator VanderLaan); 1980 Journal of the Senate 821-822 (statement of Senator Welborn); also Booms & Salter, n 16 supra, pp 1053-1054.
The Legislature is presumed to be aware of existing judicial interpretations of the law when passing legislation. Jeruzal v Wayne Co Drain Comm'r, 350 Mich 527, 534; 87 NW2d 122 (1957).
The dissent argues that the Legislature presumably was aware that Rucker was no longer good law in 1972, when it passed the no-fault act. We disagree. It is one thing to presume that the Legislature is aware of prior unanimous decisions, such as Rucker, and entirely another to suggest that the Legislature discerns that a plurality decision, such as Whetro, implicitly overruled a case which had, in 1972 when the no-fault act was passed, stood as precedent for thirty years.