Opinion ID: 1976846
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application to Pre-1982 Injuries

Text: The Court of Appeals held that the setoff provisions of § 358 could not be applied to employees whose injuries predated that provision's effective date. It reached this conclusion, based upon the assumption that such application would, in all cases involve retroactive application of the statute, and, after concluding that the statute was ambiguous on this question, applied principles of statutory construction to find that the Legislature's failure to provide clearly and unequivocally for applicability to cases of injuries predating its effective date mandates prospective application. 122 Mich App 186. We believe the analysis of the Court of Appeals on this question is erroneous. As in Chambers and Gomez, we disagree with the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board and the Court of Appeals and find that the setoff provision of § 358 may be applied to reduce workers' compensation liability to workers injured prior to its effective date. As this Court indicated in Hughes, supra, p 86, A statute is not regarded as operating retrospectively because it relates to an antecedent event. Merely because some of the requisites for its application are drawn from a time antedating its passage[, a law is not] retrospective. See also Selk, supra . [24]