Opinion ID: 848767
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the majority's unsupported extension of past case law

Text: The majority concludes: On several occasions, this Court has held that symptoms such as pain, standing alone, do not establish a personal injury under the statute. Rather, a claimant must also establish that the symptom complained of is causally linked to an injury that arises out of and in the course of employment in order to be compensable.4 4 See Kostamo v. Marquette Iron Mining Co., 405 Mich. 105, 116-118, 274 N.W.2d 411 (1979); Miklik v. Michigan Special Machine Co., 415 Mich. 364, 329 N.W.2d 713 (1982); Farrington v. Total Petroleum, Inc., 442 Mich. 201, 501 N.W.2d 76 (1993); McKissack v. Comprehensive Health Services of Detroit, 447 Mich. 57, 523 N.W.2d 444 (1994). See also Hagopian v. Highland Park, 313 Mich. 608, 621, 22 N.W.2d 116 (1946) (The amended act itself was not intended to cover aggravation of pre-existing disease without an accident or fortuitous event.). [ Ante at 203.]. The cases cited for this proposition conclude that an injury must be causally related to employment. Their focus is on the causal connection between the pain and the preexisting condition, not on whether pain alone could constitute an injury absent a preexisting condition. [1] None of them explicitly holds that pain alone is insufficient to establish an injury. Today, in its pronouncements on pain, the majority makes new law. It does not simply return the law to a prior state. When a physician evaluates a patient's condition, frequently the only symptom showing that an injury was sustained is a complaint of pain. Similar to the tip of an iceberg, pain is the sole part exposed to view, while the greatest part by far remains submerged. Using even the best medical technology, that part may not be medically distinguishable from a preexisting condition. By discounting pain and redefining injury, the majority importantly alters the previous definition of the word injury under the act and eliminates many compensation-worthy claims. Moreover, when carried to its logical conclusion, the majority's definition of personal injury may adversely affect employers, as well as employees, stripping employers of some of the protections of the Worker's Disability Compensation Act. This is because the act makes the recovery of benefits the employee's exclusive remedy against an employer for a personal injury. [2] No injury means no WDCA exclusivity. If an employee suffers harm at work, but is not injured as the majority defines the word under the act, the WDCA would cease to be the employee's exclusive remedy. M.C.L. § 418.131. Hence, the employee could bring a tort action against the employer for money damages. The employer would be subjected to the expense and uncertainty of litigation, one of the very eventualities that the WDCA was enacted to prevent. Thus, the majority alters the long-established approach to determining a compensable work-related injury. This alteration is relevant to the very foundation of the Legislature's intent in enacting the WDCA and risks upsetting it.