Court Opinion

ID: 9687851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:51:27.317675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:32.351799
License: Public Domain

Peterson, J.
(dissenting). This case involves what plaintiff frankly concedes to be an inequitable windfall arising from the manner in which the Workmen’s Compensation Act1 deals with the termination of dependency augmentation of benefits for disabled employees. The facts do, at least, present an anomalous situation in that such benefits, when attributable to dependent stepchildren, *192may continue long after the dependents have ceased to be such in fact, but would, had they been attributable to the employee’s own children, terminate on their reaching independence as statutorily defined.
On defendant’s challenge to the continuation of the dependency benefits attributable to the now independent stepchildren, the hearing referee ruled that a stepchild is not a "child” under the act but, rather, an "other dependent” whose death alone terminates the status of dependency and the disabled employee’s dependency benefits. A majority of the Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board reversed, and my brothers concur. I must regretfully disagree.
The genesis of the problem may be found in the initial determination of the Legislature to eschew dependency-in-fact as the continuing prerequisite for dependency augmentation of benefits.. Instead, having directed that dependency be initially "determined in accordance with the fact, as the fact may be at the time of the injury”,2 the Legislature specified with particularity the events which would end that status and trigger reduction of dependency benefits, as follows:
"Weekly payments to any injured employee shall be reduced by the additional amount provided for any dependent child or husband or wife or other dependent when such child either reaches the age of 21 years or after becoming 16 ceases for a period of 6 months to receive more than 1/2 of his support from such injured employee, if at such time he or she is neither physically nor mentally incapacitated from earning, or when such husband or wife shall be divorced by final decree from his or her injured spouse, or when such child, husband or wife, or other dependent shall be deceased.”3
*193The Legislature could have simply provided for payment of dependency benefits whenever dependency exists, or negatively ordered cessation of dependency benefits upon cessation of dependency. It did not do so, however, and the act as written is obviously not intended to embody a comprehensive listing of dependency-in-fact tests or even to make termination of dependency-in-fact the basis of the events upon the happening of which the dependency benefits are to cease. It has rejected a simple definition fraught with procedural complexities, under which the administrative agency, employers, and employees alike would be faced with continual review of dependency questions and resultant expense and uncertainty. Instead it has opted for stability and relative simplicity in administration by fixing the status of dependency as of the date of injury and precisely stating the exclusive and limited causes ending dependency. It is by this larger purpose of the act, rather than by its application to any particular set of facts, that legislative intent is to be measured. So, in this scheme of things, the Legislature must be presumed to have intended a variety of possible cases where there will be dependency-in-law without dependency-in-fact.
That this statutory prescription, above, is the exclusive definition of events ending dependency -under the act, see Pendell v Northwestern Leather Co, 2 Mich App 249, 252; 139 NW2d 773 (1966), which analyzed the statute as dividing dependents into three categories, i.e., child, spouse, or "other dependent”, and outlined the events terminating benefits attributable to each as follows:
"1. When a dependent spouse shall be divorced or die,
*194"2. When a dependent child (not mentally or physically incapacitated from earning),
"(a) reaches the age of 21
"(b) reaches the age of 16 and thereafter for a period of 6 months ceases to receive more than one-half of his support from the injured employee
"(c) dies; and
"3. When any other dependent dies.”
The appeal board acknowledged the exclusive and limited causes for termination of dependency benefits, but reached its result by construing the first statutory category of dependent, "child”, as not being limited to the child of the disabled employee but meaning any dependent who was a child in point of years. In this view, the language of the act mandating payment reduction by the amount "provided for any dependent child” who reaches the prescribed age and state of independence is to be read as if it said "any dependent who is a child”. There is a difference, however, and the attempt to attain this result by use of a common meaning of the word child4 ignores its setting in the act as a whole.
In Pendell, minor dependents (grandchildren) were treated as "other dependents”, as to whom the coming of age provisions pertaining to a "child” were inapplicable. Although the classification was so stated without explanation, I believe it the result compelled by the statute which nowhere uses the word "child” except in relation to the *195injured parent, i.e., meaning natural son or daughter. So, the only other reference to "child” regarding disability benefits is that stating the conclusive presumption of dependency on the injured employee of
"(ii) A child under the age of 16 years, or over said age, if physically or mentally incapacitated from earning, living with his parent at the time of injury of such parent. ”5 (Emphasis added.)
Similarly stated definitions of dependency appear in part II of the act dealing with death benefits,6 and the provisions for termination of death benefits clearly distinguish between dependent children and other dependents of less than 21 years of age.7 Conversely, the provision here involved, dealing with reduction of disability benefits, excludes any possible age-definition of the word "child” by authorizing benefits attributable to a "child” over 21 years of age who is physically or mentally incapacitated from earning.
I can only affirm the message of Pendell, supra, pp 252-253, that whether the statute should be more precisely drawn in its specific definition of events triggering dependency benefit reductions is for the determination of the Legislature.

 MCLA 411.1 et seq.; MSA 17.141 et seq.; now MCLA 418.101 et seq.; MSA 17.237(101) et seq.

 MCLA 412.9(c); MSA 17.159(c). Now MCLA 418.353(1); MSA 17.237(353)(1).

 MCLA 412.9(d); MSA 17.159(d). Now MCLA 418.353(2); MSA 17.237(353)(2).

 Another view expressed in one of the appeal board opinions tortured the act to relate the terminating event (coming of age) for child dependency to an "other dependent” by linking unrelated language, as underlined:
"Weekly payments to an injured employee shall be reduced by the additional amount provided for any dependent child or spouse or other dependent when such child either reaches the age etc, or when such spouse shall be divorced, or when such child, spouse, or other dependent shall be deceased.”

 MCLA 412.9(b)(2); MSA 17.159(b)(2). Now MCLA 418.353(1)(a)(ii); MSA 17.237(253)(1)(a)(ii). The majority herein concurring in the appeal board’s interpretation of "child” must, perforce, interpret "parent” to include stepparent and, presumably, foster parents.

 MCLA 412.6(b); MSA 17.156(b). Now MCLA 418.331(1)(b); MSA 17.237(331)(1)(b).

 MCLA 412.6(c); MSA 17.156(c). Now MCLA 418.335; MSA 17.237(335).