Opinion ID: 1159900
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Honest Perception Test

Text: Fox urges us to adopt the approach taken in Deziel v. Difco Laboratories, Inc., 403 Mich. 1, 268 N.W.2d 1 (1978). In Deziel the court adopted a strictly subjective causal nexus to determine compensability. Under this standard: [A] claimant is entitled to compensation if it is factually established that claimant honestly perceives some personal injury incurred during the ordinary work of his employment caused his disability. This standard applies where the plaintiff alleges a disability resulting from either a physical or mental stimulus and honestly, even though mistakenly, believes that he is disabled due to that work-related injury and therefore cannot resume his normal employment. Id. 268 N.W.2d at 11 (emphasis in original). The court stated that this test was appropriate because psychoneuroses were, by definition, subjective injuries and disabilities existing only in the minds of their victims. The court viewed the honest perception test as reflecting the central fact that the mentally ill claimant was mis-manufacturing or misperceiving reality. Id. at 12. The court also stated that the workers' compensation act should be construed liberally and that [c]ompensation for disability takes preference over any subsidiary doubts about the existence of an objective causal nexus. Id. at 15. We decline to adopt the honest perception test because we believe it is fundamentally inconsistent with the statutory requirement that the injury arise out of the employment. The honest perception approach does not take into account the fact that objective, environmental realities, such as employment, may or may not contribute to the disability. See Joseph, 36 Vand.L. Rev. at 308-09. While it is true, as a general policy preference, that remedial legislation should be construed liberally, this does not give us license to ignore the statutory directive. The arising out of requirement is the legislature's primary means of limiting compensation to employment related risks. A test that focuses exclusively upon the employee's honest perception ignores the statutory directive because it does not ask whether the mental injury arose from an employment related risk nor does it even look to whether an employee's subjective reaction to work stresses actually contributed to the injury. Under this test, even if the subjective reaction of a predisposed or eggshell employee did not contribute to the employee's injury, the injury would still be compensable if the employee honestly perceived that his job caused the injury. The dissent in Deziel pointed out that this scenario could occur often since it is very likely that a claimant would perceive his employment as the cause of his disorder: [F]or a neurotic state to exist, ... the person must be unable or unwilling to recognize and resolve these [inner conflicts and emotional weaknesses]. The disorder is an unconscious attempt at resolution. The only possible causative factor of which the claimant is, or will allow himself to be, consciously aware is the work-related trauma. Reality is elusive. It is, therefore, highly unlikely that the claimant's perception of causation will be anything but his employment. 268 N.W.2d at 24.