Court Opinion

ID: 9685266
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:27:32.990022+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:03.842208
License: Public Domain

Coleman, J.
(concurring in part, dissenting in part). Leave to appeal was granted in these cases to resolve one of the most vexatious problems of interpretation presented by the Worker’s Disability Compensation Act of 1969: What are the determinative factors in ruling whether a worker qualifies for benefits statutorily provided for those suffering "total and permanent disability” from "incurable insanity or imbecility” within the context of MCL 418.361(2)(f); MSA 17.237(361)(2)(f).1
*86In each case, the Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board (WCAB) applied the test set forth in Sprute v Herlihy Mid-Continent Co, 32 Mich App 574; 189 NW2d 89 (1971):
"An employee is incurably insane * * * if the occupationally-related mental or emotional illness which impairs the employee’s mental processes is of totally disabling proportions and is likely to be of long and indefinite duration, thus making gainful employment impossible.” (Footnote omitted.)
Wage-earning capacity was found to be determinative.
The majority today rejects Sprute in part and finds wage-earning capacity not to be determinative. We also would reject the Sprute test and agree that wage-earning capacity should not be determinative of MCL 418.361(2) injuries, at least during the first 800 weeks.2 Nevertheless, it may be considered among other facts relevant to the claimed psychiatric disability.
However, we cannot subscribe to the admittedly imprecise and all-encompassing definitions of "insanity” and "imbecility”.
The majority opinion says:
"We conclude that a worker’s mental illness is 'insan*87ity’ if he suffers severe social dysfunction and that a worker’s intellectual impairment is 'imbecility’ if he suffers severe cognitive dysfunction. Social or cognitive dysfunction is 'severe’ if it affects the quality of the worker’s personal, non-vocational life in significant activity comparably to the loss of two members or sight of both eyes, and is incurable if it is unlikely that normal functioning can be restored.”
This approach disavows the criteria and terminology commonly employed by the medical and legal professions and substitutes an amorphous concept (to be developed in subsequent opinions) which focuses upon non-occupational "quality of life”.
The decision also must be examined in light of the test for determining causal nexus to employment as adopted in today’s Deziel cases.3 The combined result of these cases is that if one imagines/hallucinates ("honestly perceives”) that one’s work is the cause of a "severe social or cognitive dysfunction”, that perception is conclusive even if it is not true. Total and permanent disability is established and a minimum of 800 weeks compensation is. automatic and not reviewable during that time.
From the two decisions of today, we must recognize the flow of an immeasurably broadened and even more uncertain concept of compensable, work-connected injuries.
I
A short summary in pertinent part of each of the three cases follows. All had been paid general disability compensation but subsequently filed *88claims for total and permanent disability under MCL 418.361(2X0; MSA 17.237(361X2X0.

Anna Redfern

Plaintiff was paid general disability compensation for 750 weeks after she suffered a minor injury at work. On January 8, 1968, she claimed total and permanent disability by reason of incurable insanity caused by the incident at work. She says she suffers from anxiety and sometimes she has arm and back pains. She is not delusional, hallucinatory or dangerous. She is well oriented and capable of managing her own affairs. The only psychiatrist to testify said she had a "neurotic depressive reaction with somatic manifestations”.
The WCAB expressed the opinion that she was not insane, not "incurably insane”, nor an imbecile, but felt obliged under the Sprute test to find her so because she was psychologically unfit for employment. The Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal.

Joseph Pastaleniec

Plaintiff was a plumber and worked for the same man for 25 years. When his employer died, plaintiff refused to work again as a plumber because, the psychiatrists agreed, he had looked upon the employer as a surrogate father. His refusal to seek employment again in the plumbing industry was viewed by the psychiatrists as a self-imposed, pathological form of mourning.
Plaintiff then worked for about two years for A & P in a salvage operation and was fortunate enough to find a protective foreman with whom he could form another "surrogate father” relation*89ship. He then was transferred to other work by A & P where he did not like his foreman. Only days after the transfer he fell from a ramp in what was termed a "trivial” incident. Plaintiff was X-rayed, but no physical damage was revealed. He worked one day and one hour after returning to work and never returned again.
The examining psychiatrists were in general agreement that plaintiff was a person with an extreme passive striving who sought a way of life in which he would be cared for by his wife and mother. He had lived all his life with his mother (excepting for a stint in the army). Even after a late marriage, he and his wife lived with his mother.
The psychiatrists agreed that these strivings and associated mental status long antedated his employment with defendant. Plaintiff’s psychiatrist said the death of plaintiff’s long-time plumber-employer "pulled the rug out from under him” and "[t]hen the obsessive-compulsive way of life crumbled under him and he could no longer carry out his work [plumbing]”. He felt depressed but found a job at a "reduced status” where he again could be "protected”. When he had to leave that work and that foreman, he became a "sitting duck” for the kind of injury sustained.
The injury at A & P, trivial as it was, afforded a convenient excuse to justify living a passive, dependent life.
Since leaving work, plaintiff was occasionally hospitalized for alcoholism, once by the probate court. He had cirrhosis of the liver. He was not again employed and died during the pendency of this case. His wife has been substituted for plaintiff as the executrix of his estate.
The referee found plaintiff to have been incur*90ably insane under the Sprute test. The WCAB affirmed. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Walter L. Legut

Plaintiff was working as a journeyman window cleaner when he fell from a scaffold and fractured his skull (March 6, 1964). He was paid benefits until May 2, 1964 when he returned to work for the principal defendant. In March 1966 he commenced work at Chrysler Corporation at $3.57 an hour. (He previously had been earning $113 per week.)
The record indicates that plaintiff suffered from depression, dizziness, headaches and emotional instability following his accident. His memory had become so poor he could not remember which buttons to push when running a machine. After he had cut off part of his thumb at Chrysler, he had been transferred to work as a conveyer loader. His wife testified that she gave him lists of things to purchase or do. He had to be told what clothes to wear and what to eat. She also testified that he could no longer express himself and "talks in circles”. Plaintiff’s daughter testified to Mr. Le-gut’s change of behavior. Jean S. Braun, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, found plaintiff to test between mentally defective and borderline. Plaintiff’s and defendant’s psychiatrists diagnosed an "organic brain syndrome”. Defendant’s psychiatrist found plaintiff to be of borderline mentality. A neurosurgeon testified for defendant State Accident Fund that plaintiff was suffering from a "residual of quite a severe head injury” and that he "could not operate complex machinery, even of a moderate degree of sophistication”.
However, plaintiff was working in a "limited, but productive industrial job”, so the board found *91he did not qualify for "total and permanent” disability under Sprute.
Plaintiff at first, on May 5, 1968, filed a petition for compensation based on "incurable imbecility” and later amended it to include "incurable insanity”.
Both the referee and WCAB denied benefits applying the Sprute test. Chairman Gillman wrote for the WCAB:
"Rarely does this board see a more deserving plaintiff before it seeking the benefits of the act.” 1973 WCABO 1547, 1571.
However, the state of the law under Sprute precluded § 361(2)(f) compensation. WCAB also found he did not meet the burden of proof.
The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a determination of whether plaintiff was an imbecile. It said:
"Plaintiff’s experts employed the Rorschach, Bender-Gestalt, and Wechsler tests to evaluate plaintiff’s intelligence. * * * The opinion of the board that plaintiff’s inability to translate the test results into the StanfordBinet scale, with the subsequent finding that he failed to meet his burden of proof, was prejudicial error.” 54 Mich App 404, 406; 221 NW2d 232 (1974).
It also applied the Sprute test.
II
After considerable study and reflection, we are convinced that the majority’s attempt to define precisely what constitutes the state of "incurable insanity or imbecility” creates more interpretation problems than it solves. In addition, it unduly expands the statutory language.
*92Implicit in the decision should be the recognition that "insanity” and "imbecility” are legal terms which require medical facts to establish their existence. There are so many variables possible to either mental state that any single definition is predestined to compound the confusion as to each.
Were we to write a definition for posterity, utilization of presently acceptable terminology could not withstand the inevitable changes in medical science and statutory law resulting from new discoveries or perceptions. The same result obtains from the majority’s attempts to define these terms without using medical terminology.
The Court’s introduction of definitional language different from any statutory or medical concept (i.e., "severe social dysfunction”, "severe cognitive dysfunction”, "quality of life”, "significant activity” and "comparable to [a physical disability]”) is no solution to the interpretation problem of the fact finder. To the contrary, it only adds to the burden.
Although we would not impose a precise definition, some guidance is warranted. To support a finding that a claimant is insane or imbecilic, the evidence should establish that the mental illness or mental handicap is of a truly catastrophic nature. Furthermore, a finding of entitlement to total and permanent disability benefits requires proof that the condition is "incurable”. It is important to note that incurability is no idle requirement but is further indication that the evidence must establish a catastrophic and irreversible condition before benefits may be awarded under § 361(2)(f).4_
*93The fact-finding duties are in the able hands of the referees and WCAB. They are to assess and weigh all the evidence and make findings as to whether the claimant is incurably insane or imbecilic. Expert testimony is most important. Consideration may be given also to the claimant’s wage-earning capacity, but, as we said in rejecting the Sprute test, such evidence is not determinative in and of itself. The claimant’s ability to function "normally” in a non-occupational setting is also relevant, although in and of itself it should not be determinative. In the final analysis, however, the decision regarding entitlement to total and permanent disability benefits belongs to the finder of fact. We are legally bound to rely on that judgment and not disturb it absent fraud or errors of law.
Summary
The combined impact of this majority opinion plus that of the Deziel triad of cases also released today is to lower the legislative standards entitling a claimant to a minimum of almost 16 years of unreviewable workmen’s compensation for worthy and unworthy alike. It is an undue and unnecessary burden upon other workers and consumers.
Under these opinions, if a person is found to have a "severe social dysfunction” (emphasis added) which he or she imagines/hallucinates ("honestly perceives”) is causally connected to employment, even if this is not true, thát person may be adjudged "incurably insane” under § 361(2)(f). The employer thereby is liable for at least 800 weeks of compensation for total and permanent disability.
For instance, a simple neurosis too comfortable *94to be abandoned could be viewed as work-related "incurable insanity” under this definition. Considering the nature of "insanity” or, in the Deziel cases, of neurosis, we must acknowledge reality to be elusive to and even avoided or unrecognized by the claimants.
In the same manner, if a person is found to have a "severe cognitive dysfunction” imagined to be work-related (even if not so), that person may be found entitled to a minimum 800 weeks of compensation.
These are concepts of work-related incurable insanity or imbecility which have grown neither from the medical nor the legal profession. Also, it is unlikely that the opinions reflect, even obliquely, the legislative intent at the time of the statute’s passage.
However, we do agree that the capacity to work should not be determinative of total and permanent disability, although it may be considered with other facts.
We would impose no restrictive definition of "insanity” or "imbecility” but would leave the fact finder flexible to make a determination from medical testimony according to the state of the medical science as of the time of the hearing plus other facts pertinent to the claim.
Part II reflects some guidelines which, among others, should be considered in a determination of "incurable insanity or imbecility”.
We would reverse and remand.
Fitzgerald, J., concurred with Coleman, J., except as to Pastaleniec, in which he took no part.
Ryan and Blair Moody, Jr., JJ., took no part in the decision of these cases.

 "(2) Total and permanent disability, compensation for which is provided in section 351 means:
“(a) Total and permanent loss of sight of both eyes.
“(b) Loss of both legs or both feet at or above the ankle.
*86"(c) Loss of both arms or both hands at or above the wrist.
"(d) Loss of any 2 of the members or faculties enumerated in (a), (b) or (c).
"(e) Permanent and complete paralysis of both legs or both arms or of 1 leg and 1 arm.
"(f) Incurable insanity or imbecility.”

 "The conclusive presumption of total and permanent disability shall not extend beyond 800 weeks from the date of injury and thereafter the question of permanent and total disability shall be determined in accordance with the fact, as the fact may be at that time.” MCL 418.351; MSA 17.237(351).

 Deziel v Difco Laboratories, Inc (After Remand), 403 Mich 1; 268 NW2d 1 (1978).

 It should be noted that the state of medical science at this time is such that even committable mental patients (excepting patients such as those with a disease of the brain or a progressive organic disease affecting the nervous system) often are able to function "normally” after treatment and/or upon some medication.