Opinion ID: 1279239
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Post-Hand-Injury Cancer

Text: The final subquestion under the second limited issue is, what effect did plaintiff's    subsequently disabling cancer have on her right to benefits. The answer is that the subsequently disabling cancer had no effect whatsoever on plaintiff's right to compensation for her prior hand injury. The case of Lynch v Briggs Manufacturing Co, 329 Mich 168; 45 NW2d 20 (1950), is directly on point. In Lynch as in the instant case, plaintiff was injured at work in a factory, received total compensation for a period and then returned to favored work at his skilled rate of pay. Thereafter, plaintiff was struck and injured by an automobile while standing in a street car safety zone. Plaintiff was disabled from continuing his favored work. Defendant in Lynch appealed a grant of compensation, averring that Lynch was not entitled to compensation because his present loss of earnings is due to a disability unassociated with his employment, 329 Mich 168, 171; defendant in the instant case similarly argues that since the non-work-related cancer disability has prevented plaintiff from continuing her favored work, her benefits should be barred. This Court in Lynch held: Lynch [plaintiff] at the time of hearing was not physically capable of performing the favored work. He was prevented from doing so by events not under his control. Yet he was still totally disabled in his skilled employment because of his occupational injury of 1946. Supervening events, stopping his favored work and not attributable to him, will not defeat his compensation as a skilled employee. (Emphasis added.) Lynch, supra, 172. See also Hansel v Chrysler Corp, 58 Mich App 173; 227 NW2d 276 (1975); Medacco v Campbell, Wyant & Cannon Foundry Co, 48 Mich App 217; 210 NW2d 360 (1973). [10] Because the above rules are well established, it is difficult to understand the contrary relevance ascribed to the intervening event by the WCAB. The WCAB stated: While she remains partially disabled    an event intervened in no way imputable to the employer, and the law    directs that we award only those benefits to which plaintiff was entitled prior to the larynx cancer interrupted [sic] her work career  in this case, none. [11] The Court of Appeals, however, found the WCAB had erred as to its above finding and stated: An independent, intervening event, which follows a personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment, does not alone justify the denial, suspension, reduction, or increase of disability benefits for a continuing work-related injury. In the present case, plaintiff's throat cancer itself would not alter her right to collect workers' disability benefits if her hand injuries in fact diminished her wage-earning capacity.  (Emphasis added.) We agree with this statement of the Court of Appeals and specifically find that plaintiff's post-hand-injury cancer does not adversely impact plaintiff's present right to benefits. [12]