Court Opinion

ID: 9677608
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:56:14.036383+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:57.086479
License: Public Domain

Fitzgerald, P.J.
(dissenting). We are asked to determine whether plaintiff, who is not disabled in the sense of being unable to perform any work, is entitled to work-loss benefits because she was initially unable to return to her job on account of her injuries and her job has since been filled. Specifically, the inquiry is whether a plaintiff has a duty to mitigate damages by seeking alternative employment that the disability does not prohibit. I do not believe that MCL 500.3107(b); MSA 24.13107(b) imposes such a duty and, therefore, I would reverse the trial court’s denial of plaintiff’s motion in limine to bar a mitigation of damages defense.
Section 3107(b) provides that a no-fault insurer must pay benefits for:
Work loss consisting of loss of income from work *742an injured person would have performed during the first three years after the date of the accident if he had not been injured.
In Ouellette v Kenealy, 424 Mich 83, 86; 378 NW2d 470 (1985), the Court stated that Michigan’s no-fault act is patterned after the Uniform Motor Vehicle Accident Reparations Act (umvara) and that the drafter’s comments and the provisions of the umvara may be looked to for guidance when construing provisions of our no-fault act. In Spencer v Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co, 179 Mich App 389, 399; 445 NW2d 520 (1989), this Court stated that in cases where the Legislature failed to enact a comparable portion of the umvara, a presumption exists that the Legislature considered but rejected the proposed language.
Section 1(a)(5)(h) of the umvara1 provides:
"Work loss” means loss of income from work the injured person would have performed if he had not been injured . . . reduced by any income from substitute work actually performed by him or by income he would have earned in available appropriate substitute work he was capable of performing but reasonably failed to undertake.
The drafter’s comments to this subsection provide in part:
Finally, the definition contains an explicit reference to the doctrine of avoidable consequences— work loss is computed by subtracting not only income from work which the injured person undertook in lieu of that which his injury prevented him from performing but also income which he might have earned in available appropriate substitute work. As under the common law doctrine of avoid*743able consequences, the issue is whether claimed work loss is justly attributable to the injury. Subtraction of potential income from alternate work which the injured person declines is proper only where, under all the circumstances, the alternate work is "appropriate” and the injured person’s refusal to undertake the work is "unreasonable. ”[2]
Under the reasoning of this Court’s decision in Spencer, the Legislature’s failure to adopt the avoidable consequences language contained in the umvara creates a presumption that it was considered but rejected. Section 3107(b) requires defendant to pay plaintiff for work she "would have performed” in the three years after the accident.3 Consequently, plaintiff’s failure to mitigate damages by actively seeking alternative employment that she would not have performed but for the injury is not a total defense to defendant’s duty to pay work-loss benefits.4

 See 14 ULA, Civil Procedural & Remedial Laws, p 43.

 14 ULA, p 46.

 Here, plaintiff would have continued in her employment as head operating room nurse at South Macomb Hospital. To accept the majority’s position is to generally construe § 3107(b) to require an injured plaintiff to accept any employment, regardless of the plaintiff’s level of training or skill.

 I agree with the majority’s conclusion that when a person receiving work-loss benefits has earned income from another job, the no-fault benefits are correspondingly reduced during the period of employment.