Opinion ID: 2211572
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the layman decision is sound

Text: The WCAC must first determine if there is competent, material, and substantial evidence on the whole record to support the magistrate's findings. If there is, the WCAC's review ends, and the magistrate must be affirmed. MCL 418.861a(3); 17.237(861a)(3); Holden, supra at 269, 484 N.W.2d 227; Goff, supra at 513, 563 N.W.2d 214. However, if the factual findings lack the specificity to reveal the magistrate's winding path through evidence subject to multiple interpretations, the WCAC must remand the matter for additional findings. Layman, supra at 508-509, 581 N.W.2d 244; Woody v. Cello-Foil Products (After Remand) , 450 Mich. 588, 594-595, 546 N.W.2d 226 (1996). Before the 1985 legislative amendment of the WDCA, the Worker's Compensation Appeal Board reviewed magistrates' factual findings de novo. Since then, its successor's role has been confined to reviewing for error. In making factual findings, a magistrate necessarily decides what evidence from an often voluminous record to believe and what to discount. That is the magistrate's prerogative as the primary finder of fact. [6] The WCAC cannot properly review a magistrate's findings of fact unless they are sufficiently detailed so that [the commission] can separate the facts ... found from the law ... applied, and [determine] that conclusory findings are inadequate because [the commission] need[s] to know the path [the magistrate] has taken through the conflicting evidence, the testimony it has adopted, the standards followed and the reasoning used to reach [the] conclusion. [ Woody, supra at 594, 546 N.W.2d 226.] The findings of fact must include as much of the subsidiary facts as is necessary to disclose the steps by which the factfinder reached its ultimate conclusion on each factual issue. The findings should be made at a level of specificity which will disclose to the reviewing body the choices made as between competing factual premises at the critical point that controls the ultimate conclusion of fact. [ Id. at 595, 546 N.W.2d 226 (brackets omitted).] Courts cannot adequately determine whether the WCAC exceeded the scope of its reviewing power and impermissibly substituted its judgment for the magistrate's if the factual findings are incomplete. The majority states Woody stands for the limited proposition that the WCAC cannot review a decision by a magistrate, if the magistrate's opinion is insufficiently detailed to allow the reviewing body to separate findings of fact from legal determinations. Op., p. 617. In such a case, the WCAC [is] forced to speculate regarding the facts and legal reasoning relied upon. Id. Compelling the WCAC to remand even in these limited circumstances conflicts with the majority's reading of the clear and plain language of the statute: The commission or a panel of the commission may remand a matter to a worker's compensation magistrate for purposes of supplying a complete record if it is determined that the record is insufficient for purposes of review. [MCL 418.861a(12); MSA 37.237(861a)(12).] Thus, to be consistent, the majority would have to overrule Woody as well. A second-hand evaluation by the WCAC of the magistrate's factual determinations in most cases will occasion speculation. For that reason, it is preferable for the WCAC to avoid independent fact finding and, where factual ambiguities exist, remand to the magistrate. It should remand, also, when it concludes that the magistrate missed evidence, rather than made a conscious decision not to consider it because it was unpersuasive or lacked credibility. The commission should remand, rather than make its own findings of fact, given that the appellate courts may need to review the case. Even if the standards that are in place for appellate court review of WCAC and magistrates' decisions were confusing, I question whether the majority opinion does anything to alleviate confusion. See, supra pp. 612-613, n. 5, op., p. 610, n. 1; pp. 613-614, n. 6. The majority should leave settled precedent undisturbed, unless it can show that less injury will result from overruling case law than from following it. Graves, supra at 481, 581 N.W.2d 229. The majority claims Layman has caused delays, relying on the conclusory statements of a party, defendant Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company: Layman's requirement of [r]emand for factual determination of an overlooked point slows the administrative process to a virtual standstill. [Op., p. 618, n. 10.] However, neither A & P nor the majority has brought forward any objective data to bolster this assertion. Moreover, assuming there are delays, they are more than offset by the ultimate accomplishment of more accurate, hence fair, resolution of worker's compensation cases. [7] The WDCA requires appellate courts to review the commission's findings of fact under the any evidence standard. Case law requires appellate courts to review the commission's assessment of magistrates' findings de novo, asking whether there was substantial evidence for the findings. Layman, supra at 507, 581 N.W.2d 244; Goff, supra at 513-514, 563 N.W.2d 214; MCL 418.861a(14); MSA 17.237(861a)(14); Cardinal Mooney High School, supra at 80, 467 N.W.2d 21. The Legislature has the prerogative to alter our settled caselaw's resolution of the standards. [8] See op., pp. 611-612. It is in the interest of jurisprudential stability that this Court bow to precedent and abide by its earlier resolution of the standards. To alter them now is to feed the apprehension that the standards change with the makeup of the Court. III. THE WCAC EXCEEDED ITS REVIEWING AUTHORITY IN CONNAWAY Competent, material, and substantial evidence supports the magistrate's conclusion that the plaintiff never completely recovered from the November 2, 1989, injury. It also supports his conclusion that the September 4, 1990, incident was a mere recurrence of and did not contribute independently to her disability. The WCAC erred in not giving these findings due deference. Plaintiff's testimony supports the magistrate's conclusions. She testified that she experienced soreness and swelling in her right knee throughout her work-hardening program. She had to ice her knee to control these problems. Between the time that Ms. Connaway stopped work-hardening at the end of July 1990 and August 16, 1990, when she resumed work on a trial basis, she felt her knee decreasing again, getting weaker. She continued to ice the knee in order to control soreness and swelling. When she reinjured her knee, plaintiff testified that she felt hot pain ... kind of like what I felt before, but that she did not experience the massive swelling that occurred after the Michigan injury. The day after she returned from the hospital, she called Christine Johnson at Hartford Insurance in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from whom she had previously received worker's compensation. She did this because she just figured it was the, still the same accident, I hadn't fully recovered, so I called her, `Well, Christine, what do I have to do? My knee didn't hold up....' Plaintiff testified that her current symptoms are the same as the symptoms she had between the 1989 Michigan injury and her return to work in August of 1990. The magistrate found the plaintiff's testimony credible. The testimony supports the magistrate's conclusion that plaintiff should not have returned to work in mid-August on a trial basis, because she had not recovered from her disability. Likewise, it supports the magistrate's finding that the reinjury did not independently contribute to plaintiff's disability. The fact that she has not returned to work since reinjuring her knee does not indicate that the second injury contributed independently to her disability. It may be that plaintiff never would have recovered from her initial disability to an extent that she could return to work. The medical facts, established by all three experts, indicate that the New York incident was simply a reinjury and did not add to her established disability. In his deposition testimony, Dr. Coss stated that, by August 8, 1990, he felt that plaintiff had achieved maximum benefit from the work hardening and [he] suggested a trial of work. He was tentative, but nonetheless permitted a work trial with the understanding that Ms. Connaway would have some increased percentage chance of reinjury or intolerance to the work demands. When he saw plaintiff on September 13, 1990, after the second injury, he felt she had resprained the knee. On October 18, 1990, Dr. Coss indicated that Ms. Connaway's knee was more stable than he had ever seen previously. While he continued her restriction of nonparticipation in heavy industry, it was because she had failed her trial return to work. He was unable to find any objective evidence that the New York incident caused any further harm to her knee. The magistrate found Dr. Coss' testimony to be credible. In Dr. Cisek's deposition testimony, he stated: I did not feel that there was any ... permanency associated with the accident of 9/4/90, I felt that that particular accident represented an aggravation of her preexisting condition.... Dr. Cisek went on to say that the New York event would result in only temporary aggravation of her preexisting condition. The magistrate found that Dr. Cisek gave credible testimony. Finally, Dr. Korhonen testified that plaintiff had a laterally tracking patella, a congenital anomaly, which caused plaintiff's chondromalacia. He did not indicate that any damage was caused to plaintiff's anterior cruciate ligament as a result of the September 1990 injury. The magistrate did not comment regarding the credibility of Dr. Korhonen's testimony. Because the magistrate's decision is supported by competent, material, and substantial evidence, it is manifest that the WCAC exceeded its reviewing power in overturning it. [W]here the primary compensable injury arises out of and in the course of employment[,] compensability may be extended to a subsequent injury or aggravation of the primary injury where it has been established that the subsequent injury or aggravation is the direct and natural result of the primary injury and the claimant's own conduct has not acted as an independent intervening cause of the subsequent injury or aggravation. [ Feldbauer v. Cooney Engineering Co. (On Remand), 205 Mich.App. 284, 288, 517 N.W.2d 298 (1994), quoting Schaefer v. Williamston Community Schools, 117 Mich.App. 26, 37, 323 N.W.2d 577 (1982).] Assuming arguendo that the record supports a finding that the September 1990 injury aggravated the primary injury, plaintiff's conduct did not act as an independent intervening cause of the aggravation. The second injury was a natural result of the first. Thus, compensability is properly based on the primary injury. In its reversal of the magistrate's decision, the WCAC attached great significance to the fact that Dr. Cisek termed the September 1990 incident an aggravation of plaintiff's prior condition. It found significant, also, that Dr. Coss noted subjective differences between plaintiff's condition before and after the New York injury. 1997 Mich. ACO 304. The majority, likewise, relies on these details to find that the WCAC's findings of fact are supported by any evidence. Op., p. 625. The WCAC and the majority both have failed to consider this fact: plaintiff's deterioration after the second injury is equally consistent with her testimony that her knee continuously deteriorated after she stopped work-hardening, and that the second injury contributed independently to her disability. Furthermore, the fact that Dr. Cisek described plaintiff's September 1990 incident as an aggravation is hardly probative of whether the incident contributed to the causation of the disability condition. The successive injury rule states that a second injury is considered a mere recurrence of the first where a man has suffered a back strain, followed by a period of work with continuing symptoms indicating that the original condition persists, and culminating in a second period of disability precipitated by some lift or exertion. Dressler v. Grand Rapids Die Casting Corp., 402 Mich. 243, 253, 262 N.W.2d 629 (1978). In such a case, the carrier responsible for providing coverage for the first injury remains liable for the second. An examining medical expert could well describe the second injury as an aggravation of the first without precluding the first carrier's liability. The example of the man with the strained back is wholly analogous to the situation in this case. On the basis of the plaintiff's testimony and that of the three medical experts, the magistrate was entirely justified in making the factual findings that (1) the September 1990 injury did not contribute to the underlying disability, and (2) plaintiff continued to be disabled when she was working for Welded Construction Company from August 16, 1990, until her second injury on September 4, 1990. The WCAC reinterpreted the evidence and substituted its judgment for that of the magistrate, whereas the magistrate's findings of fact were based on competent, material, and substantial evidence. This Court should reverse the WCAC under the holdings of Holden and Goff. Consequently, the Court need not reach Layman to decide Connaway. The majority has overreached the actual, pertinent issues in these cases in order to overrule a case not implicated by the issues presented. IV. CONCLUSION I dissent from the majority opinion, because it needlessly reaches out to overrule Goff. Goff is consistent with Holden and, therefore, should be left intact. I dissent, also, because the majority overrules Layman, although these two cases do not present issues that implicate its holding. Furthermore, the Layman holding is not erroneous. The majority's unnecessary change in worker's compensation law will create, rather than resolve, confusion in the state's jurisprudence. Finally, I dissent because the majority errs in affirming the Court of Appeals and WCAC decisions in Connaway. The WCAC misapprehended its administrative appellate role in reviewing the magistrate's decision. It erred as a matter of law in substituting its own findings of fact for those of the magistrate. The magistrate's findings were based on competent, material, and substantial evidence on the whole record.