Opinion ID: 848812
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The majority's loss of wage-earning capacity analysis and remand direction is flawed.

Text: The majority holds that defendant must pay only the difference in wages between what plaintiff earned while working for defendant and what plaintiff was earning at the time of trial to the extent that the difference is caused by plaintiff's injury, not by plaintiff's commission of a crime. The majority remands this case to the magistrate to make this determination. I respectfully disagree. As I have previously pointed out, the magistrate already found that there is nothing to prevent plaintiff from returning to other types of work except his disability, which was incurred as a result of his employment with defendant. Additionally, such a holding ignores the plain language of the statute. MCL 418.361(1) specifically states that an employer shall not be liable for compensation... for such periods of time that the employee is unable to obtain or perform work because of imprisonment or commission of a crime. (Emphasis added.) The majority believes that the language unable to obtain or perform work refers to a loss of wage-earning capacity, rather than the inability to work at all. Ante at 13-14. I do not believe that the language of the statute can be construed in that manner. The Legislature's choice of the words unable to obtain or perform work must be respected. We can assume that the Legislature intended the phrase to mean exactly what it saysunable to obtain or perform work, not loss of wage-earning capacity. The plain language of the statute simply does not support the majority's reading, or rewording, of the statute. There is also a flaw in the majority's remand directing the magistrate to determine to what extent plaintiff's loss of wage-earning capacity is attributable to his work-related injury and to what extent plaintiff's loss of wage-earning capacity is attributable to plaintiff's commission of a crime. The majority provides the magistrate with absolutely no guidance for making this determination. In essence, the majority merely recharacterizes the question posed to the magistrate by the WCAC on remand. After the magistrate issued her first opinion, the WCAC remanded the case to the magistrate for a determination whether defendant would have offered reasonable employment to plaintiff were it not for the statutory prohibition. On remand, the magistrate concluded that there would not have been an offer of reasonable employment because to find otherwise would be pure speculation. The WCAC then held that the mere fact that this defendant cannot hire plaintiff because of the statutory prohibition does not automatically entitle defendant to relief from payment pursuant to M.C.L. § 418.361(1). The linkage of the two statutory provisions requires a critical additional finding of fact, which was the purpose of the WCAC's remand to the magistrate. The critical additional finding was whether defendant would have offered reasonable employment to plaintiff. Because this is a question of fact and because the magistrate found that defendant could not prove that it would have offered reasonable employment to plaintiff, the WCAC affirmed the magistrate's award of benefits to plaintiff. The majority criticizes the WCAC majority for placing `an artificially-created burden on defendant to prove it would have done the very thing the ex-felon statute prohibits defendant from doing, namely, offering employment to an ex-felon....' Ante at 14 n. 7 (quoting the dissenting worker's compensation commissioners). However, I would ask the majority: What is the magistrate to consider on remand? Findings of disability and wage-earning capacity have been established and are not disputed. The majority correctly holds that the exception in M.C.L. § 418.361(1) is not employer-specific, i.e., it cannot be read as excluding an employee who is unable to work for this employer. Because the magistrate has already determined that there is nothing to prevent plaintiff from returning to other types of work except his work-related disability, I am at a loss to discover what the magistrate is to consider on remand to determine what loss of wage-earning capacity is attributable to the injury and what loss of wage-earning capacity is attributable to plaintiff's commission of a crime. Obviously, plaintiff is unable to work for defendant, this employer, because of his commission of a crime. Because we cannot read the statute as employer-specific and because plaintiff is able to work only in a limited capacity because of his work-related injury, I cannot fathom any way for the magistrate to determine that any portion of plaintiff's loss of wage-earning capacity is attributable to anything other than plaintiff's work-related injury, which she has already determined.