Case Name: AUSTIN v. W. BIDDLE WALKER COMPANY
Court: Michigan Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1968-04-26
Citations: 11 Mich. App. 311
Docket Number: Docket No. 3,165
Parties: AUSTIN v. W. BIDDLE WALKER COMPANY.
Judges: Quinn, J., concurred with J. H. Gillis, J.
Reporter: Michigan appeals reports; cases decided in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Volume: 11
Pages: 311–328

Head Matter:
AUSTIN v. W. BIDDLE WALKER COMPANY.
Opinion op the Court.
1. Workmen’s Compensation — Jurisdiction op Workmen’s Compensation Commission.
The Michigan workmen’s compensation appeal hoard has jurisdiction to apply the Michigan workmen’s compensation statute to award compensation, even though the employee was not a resident of Michigan at time of injury and his work was not performed in Michigan, if the employment contract was made in Michigan (CL 1948, § 413.19).
Dissenting Opinion.
Levin, J.
2. Workmen’s Compensation — Coverage—Residence.
An employee is not automatically disqualified for coverage under the Michigan workmen’s compensation act hy the fact that he is not a Michigan resident.
References por Points in Headnotes
[1-4] 58 Am Jur, Workmen’s Compensation §§ 68-72; Extraterritorial operation of Workmen’s Compensation Statutes; conflict of laws. 3 ALR 1351, supplemented in 18 ALR 292, 28 ALR 1345, 35 ALR 1414, 45 ALR 1234, 59 ALR 735, 82 ALR 709, 90 ALR 119.
[5] 58 Am Jur, Workmen’s Compensation § 45.
[6] 58 Am Jur, Workmen’s Compensation §§ 36, 37.
3. Same — Coverage—Place oe Making Employment Contract.
The fact that an employment contract was made in Michigan does not automatically entitle an employee to coverage under the Michigan workmen’s compensation act.
i. Same — Jurisdiction oe Appeal Board — Out-of-State Injuries.
The facts that the contract of hire was made in this state and that the workmen’s compensation appeal board has jurisdiction over a controversy arising out of injuries to an employee hired pursuant to such contract and which injury was suffered without the territorial limits of the State, does not require an award of compensation without regard to other circumstances of the employment relationship (CL 1948, § 413.19).
5. Same — Coverage As Part op Employment Contract.
Coverage of employees under workmen’s compensation act should no longer be regarded as part of their employment contract, since coverage of Michigan employers under the Michigan workmen’s compensation statute has become compulsory rather than voluntary (CL 1948, § 411.8).
6. Same — Extraterritorial Application of Act.
The extraterritorial applicability of the Michigan workmen’s compensation act should be developed case by case, based upon an appraisal of all the relevant facts and circumstances in the particular case unrestricted by any attempt to devise a test good for all cases.
Appeal from Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board.
Submitted Division 1 November 7, 1987, at Detroit.
(Docket No. 3,165.)
Decided April 26, 1968.
Leave to appeal denied August 1, 1968.
See 381 Mich 769.
Application by Clarence Austin against W. Biddle Walker Company and Liberty Mutual Insurance Company for adjustment of his workmen’s compensation claim. Additional compensation granted. Defendant appeals.
Affirmed.
A. Leon Peclc, for plaintiff.
Ijaoey & Jones (E, B. Whinham, Jr., of counsel), for defendant.'• -

Opinion:
J. II. Gillis, el.
Tlie sole issue on this appeal is whether the Michigan workmen's compensation appeal board has jurisdiction over a nonresident claimant who was injured while working in Kentucky under a Michigan contract of hire.
Clarence Austin, the claimant and plaintiff herein, was hired by defendant, W. Biddle Walker Company, in Ecorse, Michigan. After plaintiff had worked a short time at Kalamazoo, Michigan, defendant-employer sent him to a job site in Louisville, Kentucky. On December 31, 1962, while in the course of his employment with the company, plaintiff fell from a construction scaffold and was injured.
The parties are in agreement that plaintiff was at all relevant times a Kentucky resident, maintaining his home with his wife and children in Wickliffe, Kentucky. There is also no dispute that plaintiff applied for, and was receiving benefits under the Kentucky workmen's compensation act.
In November, 1963, plaintiff claimed benefits under the Michigan workmen's compensation act and filed an application for hearing and adjustment of claim with the Michigan workmen's compensation department. The referee dismissed the application for lack of jurisdiction on the basis that claimant was a nonresident and the injury occurred out of State. The workmen's compensation appeal board reversed the jurisdictional ruling on the basis that under the Michigan act the claimant need only have been injured while employed under a Michigan contract of hire. From the award of compensation benefits by the appeal board, the employer and com pensation carrier have appealed to this Court.
Part 3, § 19, of the Michigan workmen's compensation act provides:
"The industrial accident board shall have jurisdiction over all controversies arising out of injuries suffered without the territorial limits of this state, in those cases where the injured employee is a resident of this state at the time of the injury, and the contract of hire was made in this state, and any such employee or his dependents shall be entitled to the compensation or death benefits provided by this act." CL 1948, § 413.19 (Stat Ann 1960 Rev §17.193).
Although this provision on its face requires residency as a condition of benefits under the Michigan act, it has not been so construed by the Michigan Supreme Court. Plaintiff cites Roberts v. I. X. L. Glass Corp. (1932), 259 Mich 644, as compelling a decision that residency is not a requirement so long as the employment contract was made in Michigan.
Defendants contend that Roberts is no longer the law because of its inapplicability to our present statute or because of having been sub silentio overruled by 3 later decisions of our Supreme Court: Cline v. Byrne Doors, Inc. (1949), 324 Mich 540; Daniels v. Trailer Transport Company (1950), 327 Mich 525; and Wagner v. LaSalle Foundry Company (1956), 345 Mich 185.
Roberts v. I. X. L. Glass Corp., supra, is squarely on point. The jurisdiction provision in Roberts (CL 1929, § 8458) is identical to our present provision. The opinion is prefaced with:
"The sole question presented is whether an employee whose contract for employment is entered into in Michigan with a resident employer who is under the workmen's compensation act for services to be rendered wholly outside of the State of Michigan is within the terms of the act so that, if otherwise entitled thereto, he may he awarded compensation notwithstanding the accident occurred in another State and that the employee was at no time a resident of Michigan." Roberts, supra, pp 644, 645.
The Court held the act applicable. The jurisdiction provision was, in the Court's opinion, in conflict with the then-existent part 1, § 6 of the act which set out the scope and effect of the compensation provisions. At the time Roberts was decided, the act was not mandatory on Michigan employers, but rather gave them an election whether or not to be hound under its terms. The conditions of electing to he hound under the act were spelled out in part 1, § 6:
"Such election on the part of the employers mentioned shall he made by filing a written statement to the effect that such employer accepts the provisions of this act for all his businesses in which he may engage and all employees he may employ while he remains under this act." (Emphasis supplied.)
Defendants argue that the fact that the act is now mandatory necessitates a contrary result to that reached in Roberts. It is true that the Court placed great reliance on the above section 6, but it does not seem to us that the emphasis or decision was placed on the contractual nature of the act. Bather the Court based its decision on the portion of section 6 which used the phrase "all employees."
In 1921 when the jurisdictional provision was added to the act, the legislature also re-enacted part 1, § 7 (CL 1929, § 8413) which then provided:
"The term 'employee' as used in this act shall be construed to mean: Every person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied."
The Court held, in construing these various provisions (259 Mich 644, 648, 649):
"If the 1921 amendment were to be construed in accordance with appellants' contention it would work a radical change in the scope and effect of the act. "We cannot conceive of the legislature intending or attempting to accomplish such a result inferentially, as it were, by including the single quoted phrase in section 19 of part 3. If the legislature intended to so amend the statute, clearly it required a change in section 6 of part 1, above quoted, which is in no way referred to or changed by the amendatory act. That the legislature did not intend by the 1921 amendment [addition of the jurisdictional provision] to modify the act in the manner appellants assert is almost conclusively disclosed by the fact that the amendatory act covers section 7 of part 1; and. as . above stated again re-enacted that portion which defines as an employee 'every person in the service of another under any contract of hire.' This re-enacted portion of section 7 is in full harmony with the original provision in section 6 that the employer's election to come under the act is an election 'to cover and protect all employees employed in any and all * businesses' of the employer. While it must be conceded that there is some conflict between the various quoted provisions of the act as amended, we are satisfied that the reasonable construction and the one necessary to carry out the legislative intent appearing from the whole act is that it covers nonresident as well as resident employees in those cases wherein the contract of employment is entered into in this State with a resident employer."
Section 6 of part 1 has since been repealed (PA 1943, No 245) and the act made obligatory upon employers, CL 1948, § 411.2 (Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 17.142). Bnt the provisions of part 1, § 7, as above quoted have been continued: CL 1948, §411.7(2), as amended by PA 1955, No 122 (Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 17.147 [2]).
The same inconsistency facing the Court in the Roberts Case still exists in the act. Section 7 makes the act applicable to "every person in the service of another, under any contract of hire." Section 19 still purports to limit the jurisdiction to "cases where the injured employee is a resident of this state at the time of the injury." Even though the act is now obligatory, the same substantive scope as to employees covered is contained in the act. There being no further legislative intent indicated, Roberts, if not overruled, is controlling.
Cases cited by defendants do not vitiate the precise holding of Roberts. In Cline v. Byrne Doors, Inc., supra, the plaintiff-employee was a resident of this State who was working in Florida when the injury occurred. The two questions before the • Court were whether the contract of hire was made in this State and if acceptance of Florida benefits barred claimant's right to seek benefits under the Michigan act.
Daniels v. Trailer Transport Co., supra, does not decide the issue in point. There plaintiff was a resident of Illinois, the contract of hire was made in Texas and the injury was in Texas. Although the first headnote seems on point for defendants, that headnote was merely repeating the statute quoted by the Court (§ 19) aud not the decision of the Court.
The Court does refer to Cline (p 530) as being "the only decision in Michigan after the effective date of PA 1943, No 245 (compulsory act) which considers the extraterritorial operation of the workmen's compensation act." But, any change in prior law because of the compulsory nature of the amended act was not a matter of decision by the Court. Cline was cited for the proposition that the right to compensation depends on whether the contract for hire was made in this State, but the earlier Roberts decision is authority for the same proposition (259 Mich 644, 649). And although the Court in Daniels referred to the noncontractual nature of the act, the manner of becoming obligated does not appear to change the result reached in Roberts as to the requirement of a Michigan contract of hire, and the Court's language indicating such significance does not appear to be material to the decision. Daniels and Cline are both wholly consistent with Roberts insofar as the actual issues decided in those cases.
In Wagner v. LaSalle Foundry Co., supra, the claimant was employed by an Ohio employer under a contract of hire made in that State. The decision does not refer to Roberts nor is it inconsistent therewith.
This case is governed by Roberts, supra, and under the rule of that case we find the decision of the workmen's compensation appeal board to be correct.
Affirmed. Costs to appellee.
Quinn, J., concurred with J. H. Gillis, J.
As one might expect, the Michigan benefits are higher than those recoverable in Kentucky. The Michigan benefits amounted to $45 per week as opposed to $38 per week in Kentucky; in addition there are higher medical benefits in Michigan. Benefits were 'awarded under the Michigan act from December 31, 1962. By agreement, defendants were entitled to a setoff for past payments under the Kentucky aet. The difference at the time of the award was $2,482.76 plus interest from the dates the individual payments were due.
The workmen's compensation appeal board is the successor administrative agency to the appellate jurisdiction of the industrial accident board. See CLS 1961, § 408.2 (Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 17.6 [2])-