Opinion ID: 845578
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the proximate cause

Text: Primarily at issue in this case is the first requirement of MCL 418.375(2) that the work-related injury be  the proximate cause of the employee's death. In Hagerman, a majority of this Court relied on Dedes v. Asch, [7] which involved MCL 691.1407(2)(c) of the GTLA, for the proposition that the Legislature's use of the definite article the instead of the indefinite article a is inconsequential. [8] Under its interpretation of common-law principles of proximate causation, the Hagerman majority rejected the idea that by using the phrase  the proximate cause, the Legislature meant that the work-related injury had to be the sole proximate cause of the employee's death in order for the employer to be liable for death benefits under MCL 418.375(2). [9] Instead, the majority held that the employer was liable for death benefits even if there was more than one proximate cause of the employee's death, as long as the work-related injury was a substantial factor in the employee's death. [10] In a dissent joined by Justices Weaver and Brickley, I argued that the Legislature's use of the phrase  the proximate cause in MCL 418.375(2) unambiguously indicated its intent that the work-related injury must be the sole proximate cause of the employee's death in order for the employer to be liable for death benefits. My primary reasons for this conclusion were twofold. First, the term proximate cause had a longstanding definition in Michigan's jurisprudence before the enactment of the WDCA. [11] Second, the majority's analysis had improperly rewritten the statute by failing to recognize the Legislature's use of the word the. [12] Two years after Hagerman, in Robinson, supra, which involved MCL 691.1407(2)(c) of the GTLA, this Court overruled the part of Dedes, supra, on which the Hagerman majority had based its interpretation of MCL 418.375(2) of the WDCA, and held that the phrase the proximate cause as used in MCL 691.1407(2)(c) of the GTLA refers to the sole proximate cause, i.e., the one most immediate, efficient, and direct cause preceding an injury. [13] The heart of the Robinson majority's rationale, which relied in part on my dissent in Hagerman that the phrase the proximate cause is not synonymous with the phrase a proximate cause, was as follows, Robinson, supra at 460-462, 613 N.W.2d 307: [T]he Legislature has shown an awareness that it actually knows that the two phrases are different. It has done this by utilizing the phrase a proximate cause in at least five statutes16 and has used the phrase the proximate cause in at least thirteen other statutes.17 Given such a pattern, it is particularly indefensible that the Dedes majority felt free to read the proximate cause as if it said a proximate cause. The error will not be compounded, as today this Court corrects the flawed analysis of the Dedes majority. Nevertheless, the fact that the Legislature sometimes uses a proximate cause and at other times uses the proximate cause does not, of course, answer the question what the proximate cause means other than to show that the two phrases should not be interpreted the same way. Our duty is to give meaning to the Legislature's choice of one word over the other. We agree with the following analysis found in the dissent in Hagerman v. Gencorp Automotive, 457 Mich. 720, 753-754, 579 N.W.2d 347 (1998): Traditionally in our law, to say nothing of our classrooms, we have recognized the difference between `the' and `a.' `The' is defined as `definite article. 1. (used, esp. before a noun, with a specifying or particularizing effect, as opposed to the indefinite or generalizing force of the indefinite article a or an)....' Random House Webster's College Dictionary, p. 1382. Further, we must follow these distinctions between `a' and `the' as the Legislature has directed that `all words and phrases shall be construed and understood according to the common and approved usage of the language....['] MCL 8.3a; MSA 2.212(1). Moreover, there is no indication that the words `the' and `a' in common usage meant something different at the time this statute was enacted .... Further, recognizing that the is a definite article, and cause is a singular noun, it is clear that the phrase the proximate cause contemplates one cause. Yet, meaning must also be given to the adjective proximate when juxtaposed between the and cause as it is here. We are helped by the fact that this Court long ago defined the proximate cause as the immediate efficient, direct cause preceding the injury. Stoll v. Laubengayer, 174 Mich. 701, 706, 140 N.W. 532 (1913). The Legislature has nowhere abrogated this, and thus we conclude that in MCL 691.1407(2)(c) the Legislature provided tort immunity for employees of governmental agencies unless the employee's conduct amounts to gross negligence that is the one most immediate, efficient, and direct cause of the injury or damage, i.e., the proximate cause. 16 See MCL 436.1801(3); MSA 18.1175(801)(3), MCL 600.2947(6)(a); MSA 27A.2947(6)(a), MCL 600.6304(8); MSA 27A.6304(8), MCL 691.1665(a); MSA 12.418(5)(a), and MCL 750.145o; MSA 28.342A(o). 17 See MCL 257.633(2); MSA 9.2333(2), MCL 324.5527; MSA 13A.5527, MCL 324.5531(11); MSA 13A.5531(11), MCL 324.5534; MSA 13A.5534, MCL 418.375(2); MSA 17.237(375)(2), MCL 500.214(6); MSA 24.1214(6), MCL 600.2912b(4)(e); MSA 27A.2912(2)(4)(e), MCL 600.2912b(7)(d); MSA 27A.2912(2)(7)(d), MCL 600.2912d(1)(d); MSA 27A.2912(4)(1)(d), MCL 600.2947(3); MSA 27A.2947(3), MCL 600.5839(1); MSA 27A.5839(1), MCL 691.1407(2)(c); MSA 3.996(107)(2)(c), and MCL 750.90e; MSA 28.285e. Despite the fact that MCL 418.375(2) of the WDCA, at issue in this case, and MCL 691.1407(2) of the GTLA, which was at issue in Robinson, both use the phrase the proximate cause, Adam argues that the definition of the proximate cause from Robinson should not be applied to MCL 418.375(2). Adam's primary argument in support of this assertion is that the GTLA, as a statute in derogation of the common law, is generally said to be strictly construed in favor of governmental immunity, [14] while the WDCA, being a remedial statute, is generally said to be liberally construed to grant, rather than deny, benefits. [15] Although we have stated and utilized these preferential rules of construction in the past, their application is unnecessary in this case because the proper definition of the phrase the proximate cause can be ascertained solely by reference to the common meaning of the term the and the peculiar meaning that the phrase proximate cause has acquired in the law. These preferential rules of construction do not nullify the general rule that statutes should be reasonably interpreted consistent with their plain and unambiguous meaning. See Northern Concrete Pipe, Inc. v. Sinacola Cos-Midwest, Inc., 461 Mich. 316, 320-321, 603 N.W.2d 257 (1999). More importantly, they do not override the Legislature's clear directive in MCL 8.3a that common words, such as the, are to be construed according to their common meaning and that words that have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in the law, such as proximate cause, are to be accorded such peculiar and appropriate meaning. Accordingly, we overrule Hagerman and hold that the phrase the proximate cause, as used in MCL 418.375(2) of the WDCA, refers to the sole proximate cause. In deciding to overrule Hagerman, we have not only considered the fact that it was wrongly decided but also whether less injury will result from overruling it than from following it. [16] In making this determination we have considered whether Hagerman defies practical workability, whether reliance interests would work an undue hardship, and whether changes in the law and facts no longer justify the Hagerman decision. [17] Hagerman defies practical workability because a person reading the statute surely would not know that he or she cannot rely on what the statute plainly says. That is, a reader and follower of the statute would, because of Hagerman's rewrite, not be behaving in accord with the law. Such a regime is unworkable in a rational polity. This all gets back to the unrebutted truth that it is to the words of he statute itself that a citizen first looks for guidance in directing his actions. [18] Furthermore, Hagerman is not only inconsistent with the plain language of the statute, it is also inconsistent with this Court's decision in Robinson. How are the people of this state to know what the proximate cause means when there is one case from this Court that states that it means one thing and another case that states that it means something else? When identical words in the law, lying within a similar statutory context, mean something altogether different, we do believe that there is a practical workability problem, not in the sense that a court of law cannot render some decisionno opinion of this Court is unworkable in that sense  but in the sense that the law is made a mockery, meaning one thing in one paragraph and something else in the next. The law is thereby made less workable in the sense that it is made more confusing and less decipherable to the ordinary citizen. As we noted this very term in Joliet v. Pitoniak, 475 Mich. 30, 40, 715 N.W.2d 60 (2006), when two decisions from this Court contain conflicting analysis, this Court is obligated to resolve this conflict and decide which decision best reflects the legislative intent expressed in the words of the statute .... This is true even where, as here, the conflicting decisions address the same or similar language, but not the same statutes. [19] Regarding reliance interests, Hagerman, having been decided just eight years ago, has not become so embedded, so accepted, so fundamental, to everyone's expectations that to change it would produce not just readjustments, but practical real-world dislocations. [20] Such reliance is only present where the prior decision has caused a large number of persons to attempt to conform their conduct to a certain norm. For example, where an entire class of individuals or businesses purchase insurance and another entire class does not in reliance on a decision by this Court, this may be viewed as the sort of reliance that could cause practical real-world dislocations. Cf. Pohutski v. City of Allen Park, 465 Mich. 675, 641 N.W.2d 219 (2002). There is a significant distinction between merely complying with precedent and affirmatively altering one's behavior in reliance on precedent. Where there is mere compliance with precedent, the overruling of that precedent will not cause practical real-world dislocations, but where a great number of people affirmatively alter their behavior in reliance on precedent, the overruling of a precedent may cause practical real-world dislocations. [21] This Court's decision in Hagerman cannot be said to have caused a great number of persons to affirmatively alter their conduct in any way, except in the sense that any law requires general compliance with its terms. It cannot be seriously argued that Randall Paige positioned himself in reliance on Hagerman. He, as indeed any injured employee we might see, did not script his unfortunate injuries and illnesses with reference to Hagerman or any other case of this Court. Nor did his lawyers proceed any differently because of Hagerman. Furthermore, for most of the duration of this litigation Hagerman's status was precarious, and known to be such, because Robinson, which made Hagerman untenable, was decided only two years after Hagerman. Finally, we need not consider whether changes in the law and facts no longer justify Hagerman because Hagerman itself was never justified as it was a change in the law that this Court had the power, but not the authority, to make. It was not justified from its inception. Thus, with Hagerman no longer controlling, we return to the language of the statute. It is the case that in order for an employer to be liable for death benefits under MCL 418.375(2), the deceased employee's work-related injury must have been the one most immediate, efficient, and direct cause preceding [the death]. [22] We therefore remand this case to the WCAC for a determination whether Randall Paige's work-related injury was the proximate cause of his death under this standard.