Opinion ID: 626814
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Property Interest in Claim for Worker's Compensation Benefits

Text: Independently of our analysis thus far, we also hold that the plaintiffs in this case have a property interest in their claim for benefits. Therefore, even if Michigan courts would not recognize an expectancy of benefits under the WDCA as property, the plaintiffs in this case may proceed by alleging injury to property in that their claim to benefits under the worker's compensation scheme was damaged by the defendants' actions. American Manufacturers specifically reserved judgment on whether an applicant has a property interest in ... claims for payment, as distinct from the payments themselves. Am. Mfrs., 526 U.S. at 61 n. 13, 119 S.Ct. 977 (emphasis added). The holding was limited to the expectation of payment of worker's compensation (i.e., mailing a particular check), not the claim for payment (i.e., entitlement to present a claim). Had the defendants in American Manufacturers barred the plaintiffs from following the statutory procedures for presenting a claim at all, the result would very likely have been different. Michigan law describes a cause of action for worker's compensation as a species of propertyfor both the plaintiff and the defendant. Williams v. Hofley Mfg. Co., 430 Mich. 603, 424 N.W.2d 278, 282, 283 & n. 16 (1988) (citing Logan, 455 U.S. at 428, 102 S.Ct. 1148). Although the dissent is correct that the plaintiff in Williams had already been awarded worker's compensation, unlike here, the relevant interest at issue was not the employee's expectancy in benefits but whether an employer had a property interest in a worker's compensation cause of action such that a failure to afford the employer adequate process in such a proceeding injured his property. The court held that it was property. Here, the plaintiffs' claim is not necessarily about particular payments themselves, but also about the defendants' deception before the WDCA that deprived the plaintiffs of the ability to assert their claim for benefits under the statute in a fair forum. [13] We hold that Michigan would recognize a claim for worker's compensation benefits as a species of property independently of whether the employee had obtained an interest yet in the underlying benefits themselves. And as discussed throughout, we see no reason to exclude injuries to causes of action, which are indisputably injuries to property, from the category identified by Congress as property in RICO. Finally, the defendants are correct that worker's compensation is a substitute for the tort system. Brown III, 546 F.3d at 359. That does not mean, however, that claims for worker's compensation sound in tort. When a plaintiff's personal injury is filtered through the WDCA, it is converted into a property right.