Court Opinion

ID: 9734168
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:26:50.962864+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:46.114543
License: Public Domain

*419Boyles, J.
(concurring). I concur in reversal. To avoid misunderstanding, I find it advisable to write my reasons.
The record here does establish, as shown by Mr. Justice Reid, that the plaintiff relies, for recovery of “damages,” on his relationship of employer and employee. This brings him within the purview of the workmen’s compensation act.
For that reason I agree that plaintiff’s remedy, if any, lies under the act. It may be, as has been sometimes shown in our opinions, that for some valid reason an employee cannot recover damages from his employer, namely, compensation under the workmen’s compensation act, for an injury. It is also conceivable that there are circumstances under which an employee may recover damages based on the negligence of his employer, or his workmen, entirely unrelated to the relationship of employee which the claimant bears to the defendant employer. But that is not the case here. Neither do I read into Mr. Justice Reid’s opinion, as apparently Mr. Justice Smith does, any holding that the workmen’s compensation act would necessarily bar recovery of damages in a common-law action against the employer, under all circumstances.
But I do agree that an employee who, for any valid reason, cannot recover compensation from the employer under the workmen’s compensation act, based on this relationship, cannot then turn to a common-law action against his employer for damages and at the same time base his action on the relationship of employer and employee. That is the case which we have here. As I read Mr. Justice Reid’s opinion, it does not hold that the workmen’s compensation act bars every recovery of damages for an injury, by an employee, against his employer, *420merely because the plaintiff was an employee of the defendant.*
Dethmers, J., concurred with Boyles, J,

 Por case holding that filing of claim ■with workmen’s compensation commission bars action at law, see Morris v. Ford Motor Co., 320 Mich 372.
Por ease holding that commission has exelnsive jurisdiction under certain circumstances, see Dershowitz v. Ford Motor Co., 327 Mich 386.