Court Opinion

ID: 9594060
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:26:46.986405+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:22.720260
License: Public Domain

Riley, J.
([concurring in part and dissenting in part). I agree with the majority opinion’s analysis in part I insofar as it holds that in order to establish a disability under MCL 418.301(4); MSA 17.237(301)(4) an employee need only prove that (1) he has suffered a personal injury or work-related disease and (2) that he is no longer able to perform any work, even a single job, within his qualifications and training. Moreover, I agree that the employee must, as an independent second step, prove wage loss by demonstrating a reduction in earning capacity to establish his right to recovery. See ante at 634. In my opinion, this is the *678meaning of a compensable disability under subsection 301(4). However, I do not agree with the three-part test the majority has identified from Sobotka v Chrysler Corp (After Remand), 447 Mich 1, 17; 523 NW2d 454 (1994), in part n, that operates to displace completely the two-step analysis envisioned by the Legislature and that wrongly lowers the threshold of proof necessary to demonstrate a loss of earning capacity.
In applying the proper standard, I concur in the majority’s holding in Haske v Transport Leasing, Inc, that plaintiff Andrew Haske was partially disabled and in the decision to remand to the wcac. Hence, I would also affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals. In Bailey v Leoni Twp, however, I dissent from the majority’s decision to remand to the magistrate. I would reverse the decisions of the Court of Appeals and the Worker’s Compensation Appellate Commission and reinstate the magistrate’s denial of benefits.
ANALYSIS
I. PROOF OF A COMPENSABLE DISABILITY UNDER SUBSECTION 301(4)
In order to become eligible to receive worker’s compensation benefits under chapter 3 of the Worker’s Disability Compensation Act, MCL 418.301; MSA 17.237(301), the employee must prove that he has suffered a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment. See MCL 418.301(1); MSA 17.237(301)(1).1 In order to meet this test, the *679employee must prove that his personal injury was a “disability” under subsection 301(4):
As used in this chapter, “disability” means a limitation of an employee’s wage earning capacity in work suitable to his or her qualifications and training resulting from a personal injury or work related disease. The establishment of disability does not create a presumption of wage loss.
Like the majority, see ante at 642-643, I believe that subsection 301(4) is composed of two proofs: the employee must (1) prove that he has suffered a disability and (2) prove that this disability has resulted in a subsequent wage loss. In other words, the employee must first prove disability and then must prove that it is compensable. See Rea v Regency Olds/Mazda/Volvo, 450 Mich 1201, 1202; 536 NW2d 542 (1995) (Riley, J., dissenting) (“To be a compensable disability under the act, it is necessary to show both the work-related injury and wage loss”) (emphasis in original). Moreover, the Legislature has provided that the calculation of wage loss is measured by an “impairment [in] earning capacity” in the employments in which the employee was working when the injury occurred. MCL 418.371(1); MSA 17.237(371)(1). 2 This Court has reiterated the point on *680several occasions that loss of wage-earning capacity is the basic criterion for determining entitlement to compensation benefits. See, e.g., Leizerman v First Flight Freight Service, 424 Mich 463, 473; 381 NW2d 386 (1985).3 Thus, I agree with the majority that the first sentence of subsection 301(4) must define a disability as an inability to perform at least a single job within an employee’s qualifications and training. See ante at 634.4
After establishing the proper two-part framework, however, the majority sets it aside in favor of a three-part test that it derived from its analysis of the lead *681opinion in Sobotka, supra. The majority concludes as follows:
In application [of the two-part test], these basic principles operate to require that an employee must establish (1) a work-related injury, (2) subsequent loss in actual wages, and (3) a causal link between the two. Proof of the three elements will establish that an employee can no longer perform at least a single job within his qualifications and training, thus satisfying the first sentence of subsection 301(4), and that he has suffered a loss in wages, satisfying the second sentence of subsection 301(4). [Ante at 634-635 (emphasis in original).]
There is no basis in the statute for allowing this standard to replace the legislatively established one, i.e., that the employee must prove (1) a disability and then (2) a reduction of his earning capacity.
As I understand the proper system, a disability would be “a limitation in an employee’s wage-earning capacity” under the first step, because an employee could no longer perform a single job within his qualifications and training, but this fact would not necessarily establish a loss in that employee’s earning capacity when considering all the jobs within his qualifications and training under the second step.5 *682However, the majority refuses to accept the logic of its own test by rejecting this point:
Absent postinjury employment establishing a new wage-earning capacity, benefit levels are not to be reduced by the proportionate impairment of residual wage-earning capacity. [Ante at 635, n 2.]
In other words, in proving a reduction in earning capacity, the employee apparently has no duty to prove that he is unable to earn the same wage for all the jobs within his qualifications and training. See also ante at 654, n 24, and 661.61 disagree.
In reaching its conclusion, the majority relies on the analysis of the lead opinion in Sobotka, supra at 27, reasoning as follows:
[W]e rejected [in Sobotka] the defendant’s claim that a partially disabled worker who is not receiving wages must prove that the absence of wages is due to absence of residual wage-earning capacity. [Ante at 658.]
This conclusion appears nowhere in the text of the lead opinion in Sobotka. Instead, the lead opinion only concluded that an employee need not refute that he has a theoretical earning capacity:
We reject the contention . . . that plaintiff bears the burden of producing evidence of jobs he could not perform if *683theoretically available and that defendant’s offer of evidence of plaintiff’s ability in the abstract to perform some employment rebuts the inference of causation that arises from a showing of unemployment and injury. [Id. at 27.]
This is a different point from the one the majority makes in the instant case. I agree that an employee need not prove that he has no theoretical earning capacity and that he should not bear the burden of demonstrating that he cannot perform jobs that are not actually available to him. However, he must prove that he cannot earn wages in all the jobs within his qualifications and training that are available. In fact, there is support for this very point in the lead opinion of Sobotka, as the majority notes, where Sobotka quoted from Jones v Cutler Oil Co, 356 Mich 487, 490; 97 NW2d 74 (1959):
“[The] real inquiry [for determining loss of wages] relates to the monetary worth of the injured workman’s services in the open labor market under normal employment conditions.” [Sobotka, supra at 24-25 (Boyle, J., lead opinion).]
The employee must prove that the injury affects his ability to earn in each of the jobs within his qualifications and training that are available to that employee. Where the employee has multiple positions that he may perform within his qualifications and training, he will have to carry his burden with respect to each position.
Of course, the lead opinion recognized in Sobotka, and I agree, that the employee does not bear the burden of a poor economy. Thus, if the only other positions that the employee is still able physically to perform are not available to him because of the economy, the lead opinion makes clear that he may still *684fully recover. See id. at 27-28. I do not dispute this point. This is now the rule of law in Michigan. See McKissack v Comprehensive Health Services of Detroit, 447 Mich 57, 70; 523 NW2d 444 (1994).
Nevertheless, in every case in which an employee is partially disabled and unemployed, I would expect that, in order to prove a reduction in earning capacity, an employee would give testimony that either he is physically unable to perform all the jobs that he could previously perform within his qualifications and training available to him or that he has sought work for the jobs he is able to physically perform but did not receive an offer of work. The lead opinion in Sobotka apparently expected as much. See id. at 26 (Boyle, J., lead opinion).7 There is also the possibility that the only positions that an employee would physically be able to perform after his injury (within his qualifications and training) would be ones that do not pay the same wage as his previous job. As I understand the employee’s burden of proving a reduction in earning capacity, the injured employee would be bound to seek work in these positions and, if he was able to obtain one, he would receive the difference between his previous wage and his new lesser wage in worker’s compensation.8
*685The meaning of the standard that the majority uses to determine whether there is a reduction of earning capacity, i.e., whether the employee has proven that his injury caused the subsequent wage loss, see ante at 661, is not clearly defined. From the majority’s analysis, I do not know in what circumstances an employee will have carried this burden. I also do not know under what circumstances the magistrate has a basis on which to infer the link between the injury and actual loss of wages. I believe that the magistrate should only infer an employee’s loss of earning capacity in cases in which the facts are sufficient to warrant such an inference.
Furthermore, the majority misstates the burden of proof for worker’s compensation cases. In interpreting this Court’s decision in Sobotka, the majority concluded that we determined as follows:
Could benefits ever be denied where plaintiff was injured and unemployed? We answered: “Yes,” where the defendant carries the burden of showing the plaintiff’s “employability.” Fellows v Fuller Brush Co, 1996 Mich ACO 151, 161. [Ante at 657.]
Thus, the majority states that the employer, as the defendant, carries the burden of proving the *686employee’s employability. The lead opinion in Sobotka, however, only recognized that a finder of fact may infer an impairment of wage-earning capacity from a partial disability where that employee shows a work-related disability and subsequent wage loss. See Sobotka, supra at 15, 25 (Boyle, J, lead opinion). It did not indicate that an employer carries the burden of proving the employee’s employability. Rather, the lead opinion only authorizes the magistrate to infer that an employee has suffered a reduction in earning capacity from the nature of the proofs establishing that he is disabled and suffered a loss in wages.
For these reasons, I cannot agree with the three-part test the majority has established, displacing the framework created by the Legislature. These disagreements have implications for the instant cases before this Court.
H. HASKE AND BAILEY
In Haske, I agree with the majority that the WCAC applied the wrong definition of disability in reversing the magistrate’s grant of benefits for a partial disability. However, the wcac did find that the employee suffered no loss in earning capacity. Hence, by this finding, the employee would have suffered no wage loss as measured by the reduction of his earning capacity. Nevertheless, the wcac’s finding did not consider whether the jobs that the employee was performing were equally well paying or whether there were available jobs at his previous wage that the employee could perform when it determined that he suffered no loss of wage-earning capacity. Hence, I would also *687affirm the Court of Appeals decision to remand to the WCAC.
In Bailey, I agree with the majority that the wcac wrongly concluded that the magistrate found a partial disability. Nevertheless, I would not remand. The magistrate found that Bailey had “never testified that he could not find employment as an electrician or that he even sought such employment.” As a self-employed professional, this kind of testimony would be critical for establishing a prima facie case that the injury impaired his earning capacity. Bailey has failed to provide evidence that he suffered a loss in what he is able to earn after the personal injury as an electrical contractor. Therefore, the magistrate properly denied him benefits. I believe the wcac erred on a legal question by failing to consider whether Bailey had proven a wage loss. The Court of Appeals also erred in affirming this decision. I would reverse the wcac and the Court of Appeals and reinstate the magistrate’s refusal to grant benefits.

 MCL 418.301(1); MSA 17.237(301)(1) provides in part:
*679An employee, who receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment by an employer who is subject to this act at the time of the injury, shall be paid compensation as provided in this act.

 Subsection 371(1) provides in full:
The weekly loss in wages referred to in this act shall consist of the percentage of the average weekly earnings of the injured employee computed according to this section as fairly represents the proportionate extent of the impairment of the employee’s earning capacity in the employments covered by this act in which the *680employee was working at the time of the personal injury. The weekly loss in wages shall be fixed as of the time of the personal injury, and determined considering the nature and extent of the personal injury. The compensation payable, when added to the employee’s wage earning capacity after the personal injury in the same or other employments, shall not exceed the employee’s average weekly earnings at the time of the injury. [Emphasis added.]

 In Leizerman, supra at 473, this Court stated the following:
[The] plaintiff fails to take into account the Legislature’s reason for determining that wage-earning capacity, rather than actual wages earned, is the criterion by which entitlement to benefits is measured.
Under this longstanding interpretation, loss of “wage-earning capacity” as the operative criterion for determining entitlement to benefits, serves the dual purpose of discouraging malingering and not penalizing the worker for his ability to do a job which is not available. The use of “wage-earning capacity” is not intended to compensate the worker for every employment opportunity that is lost due to injury.

 I also agree that the Legislature intended to abrogate the distinction between skilled and unskilled employment. See id. at 651-652. Further, I agree with the opinion’s definitions of partial and total disability. See id. at 654-655.

 The concurrence/dissent by Justice Weaver advances the other possible understanding of the phrase “a limitation of . . . earning capacity” by arguing that whether there is a limitation “requires consideration of the effect of the work-related disease or injury on earning capacity in all those jobs in which the individual is qualified and trained.” See ante at 668. I cannot accept this interpretation because it effectively renders superfluous subsection 371(1) and eliminates any separate significance to the second sentence of subsection 301(4) (“establishment of disability does not create a presumption of wage loss”). The system of the concurrence/dissent of Justice Weaver would create a duplication: wage loss is calculated in subsection 371(1) in the same way that Justice Weaver believes that an employee must prove a disability under subsection 301(4).

 The majority states:
We reiterate that reduction in earning capacity is a different concept than residual earning capacity. [Ante at 654, n 24.]
Sobotka furnishes no authority for the proposition that plaintiffs must prove absence of residual earning capacity, i.e., an ability to earn the same wages when considering all the jobs within his qualifications and training. [Id. at 661.]

 In Sobotka, supra at 26, Justice Boyle noted:
For example, in the instant case the employee presented evidence that he sought and could not obtain employment and evidence of defendant’s refusal to rehire, which has been described as strong evidence of unemployability. [Emphasis added.]

 Therefore, if the employee did not seek out the lesser-paying positions because of malingering, and was unemployed as a consequence, the employee would only receive worker’s compensation for the reduction in his earning capacity that he suffered because of his injury, but he would not recover the remaining lesser wage that he could have earned had he *685sought work. See, e.g., Williams v Blitz Construction Co, 1995 Mich ACO 1169 (reducing an award for an unemployed, injured claimant from $250 a week to $100 a week where there was a lesser paying job actually available within the claimant’s qualifications and training that he was not performing). The majority appears to reject this possibility by requiring that either this employee receive his full previous wage or nothing. See n 38 on p 662 (“Where the plaintiff is unemployed and the magistrate credits a link between disability and actual lost wages, evidence of residual earning capacity is not probative of any material issue”). This is not, in my opinion, consistent with the act’s requirement that the employee demonstrate wage loss by proving a reduction in earning capacity.