Opinion ID: 1312304
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: compensability of mental disability in michigan

Text: Mental disability, in one form or another, [2] has been recognized as a compensable injury in this state for over seventy years. Before the legislative amendments of the worker's compensation act in 1982, embodied in 1980 PA 357, the compensability of a mental disability arising from the ordinary events of employment was governed by a line of cases beginning with Carter v General Motors Corp, 361 Mich 577; 106 NW2d 105 (1960). Carter involved a machine worker with a predisposition for paranoid schizophrenia. The worker filed for benefits, claiming that emotional pressures from his daily work triggered his psychosis. [3] The central issue in Carter was whether a mental disability is compensable when it results from a series of ordinary employment events. The disability in Carter was unique because the claimant became disabled as a result of stress that gradually accumulated from ordinary events. [The claimant's] disability was caused by emotional pressures produced by production line employment not shown by him to be unusual in any respect,  that is, not shown by him to be any different from the emotional pressures encountered by his fellow workers in similar employment. [ Id. at 585.] Nonetheless, the Court found that mental disability, triggered by ordinary employment events and pressure, could be compensable. Carter was expanded by this Court in the controversial Deziel v Difco Laboratories, Inc (After Remand), 403 Mich 1; 268 NW2d 1 (1978). In Deziel, [4] this Court articulated a three-step inquiry to determine the compensability of mental disabilities. Under Deziel, a claimant had to prove: (1) a mental disability; (2) arising out of a personal injury (defined as a precipitating work-related event); and (3) an honest, even if mistaken, perception that the employment-related injury was responsible for the disability. Id. at 35-37. This Court determined that the proper causal standard to be applied in mental disability cases was a subjective one: We hold, as a matter of law, that in cases involving mental (including psychoneurotic or psychotic) injuries, once a plaintiff is found disabled and a personal injury is established, it is sufficient that a strictly subjective causal nexus be utilized by referees and the WCAB to determine compensability. Under a strictly subjective causal nexus 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. See anno: Workmen's compensation: Neurasthenia as compensable, 44 ALR 500. The focal point of this standard is the plaintiff's own perception of reality. [ Id. at 26. Emphasis in original.] Deziel expressly rejected application of an objective causal standard. Any attempt to take the inquiry to an objective level, i.e., did claimant's employment really combine with some internal weakness or disease to produce the disability?, is bound to lead to frustration and eventually ad hoc manipulation. This is true because in most cases the question is unanswerable. [ Id. at 31. Emphasis in original.]