Court Opinion

ID: 9687106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:16:13.906388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:24.280655
License: Public Domain

Connor, J.
(concurring), I agree with my colleagues that defendant was entitled to a setoff equal to the entire amount of social security benefits paid to plaintiff, including the amount paid to plaintiff’s attorney.
I also agree that "underemployed” is clearly not the same as "temporarily unemployed.” The trial court’s order granting plaintiff summary disposition and awarding work-loss benefits under § 3107a must be reversed. However, the majority opinion fails to address the trial court’s misapprehension that plaintiff’s benefits would be unfairly diminished if they were to be determined under § 3107(l)(b) merely because he was underemployed at the time of his accident.
Defendant, applying § 3107(l)(b), calculated plaintiff’s work-loss benefits on the basis of the amount he was earning at the time of his accident, $55 a week. The trial court ordered that plaintiff’s benefits be redetermined pursuant to § 3107a (using as the income basis his income at his last full-time employment), because the court determined that plaintiff should not be penalized for accepting part-time employment, the only available work at the time of his accident.
The appropriate no-fault work-loss benefits payable to an underemployed person is set forth in § 3107(l)(b), which provides in part:
[P]ersonal protection insurance benefits are payable for the following:
*660Work loss consisting of loss of income from work an injured person would have performed during the first 3 years after the date of the accident if he had not been injured .... [MCL 500.3107(l)(b); MSA 24.13107(l)(b).]
The amount of money an underemployed person would earn in the three years after the date of the accident is a question of fact. Nothing in the provision states that the income must be calculated on the basis of the person’s earnings at the time the injury occurred. Kirksey v Manitoba Public Ins Corp, 191 Mich App 12, 16; 477 NW2d 442 (1991). An underemployed person is entitled to increased work-loss benefits if it can be demonstrated convincingly that, but for the injury, a higher income would have been earned during the three years after the date of the accident.
After remand, plaintiff should be permitted to present his proofs regarding his anticipated loss of income from work he would have performed during the first three years after the date of the accident if he had not been injured.