Court Opinion

ID: 9688364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:44:43.13219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:37.876599
License: Public Domain

Archer, J.
(concurring). This Court granted leave to consider whether MCL 418.373(1); MSA 17.237(373)(1)1 of the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act should be applied retroactively. I would hold that the provision applies prospectively to those employees injured on or after January 1, 1982, the amendment’s effective date. I would affirm the May 2, 1986, decision of the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board and vacate the peremptory reversal of the Court of Appeals.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Plaintiff Frederick White was employed for *401thirty-seven years by defendant GMC Truck & Bus Group as a painter and sander. Plaintiff retired on March 31, 1980, under defendant’s “thirty and out” early retirement plan. On May 29, 1980, plaintiff filed a petition for hearing with the Workers’ Compensation Bureau asserting that he was disabled as of his early retirement date by chronic respiratory problems arising from lengthy exposure to paint and other toxic agents. The hearing referee awarded plaintiff weekly benefits effective from his retirement date and payable until further notice by the bureau. The referee further attributed plaintiff’s condition to lengthy exposure to toxic fumes in the work place:
It is further found that the plaintiff who retired at age 59 after 37 years exposure to paint fumes, paint mist and other pollutants, has proved that he has a work incurred disabling chronic obstructive lung disease, He was not a cigaret smoker and had an excellent work record. It is believed that he retired early because of his respiratory condition.
Defendant appealed to the wcab, arguing that the plaintiff was not disabled.2 However, in the interim between defendant’s July 13, 1981, filing and the wcab’s eventual decision, the Michigan Legislature enacted 1980 PA 357, effective Janu*402ary 1, 1982, MCL 418.373(1); MSA 17.237(373X1), which instituted a rebuttable presumption of non-disability as to the plaintiffs class of retirees.
On May 2, 1986, the wcab affirmed plaintiffs benefit award. However, in reliance upon this Court’s decision in Hurd v Ford Motor Co, 423 Mich 531; 377 NW2d 300 (1985), the board further commented that the defendant was not entitled to assert §373(l)’s rebuttable presumption as it concerned substantive rights and was intended by the Legislature to apply prospectively to employees injured after its effective date.
Defendant filed a motion for peremptory reversal in the Court of Appeals arguing that § 373(1) governed two claimant classes: (1) the prospective class identified by the wcab, and (2) a retroactive class of those injured prior to January 1, 1982, yet who were entitled to benefits after that date.3 On July 10, 1986, the Court of Appeals vacated plaintiffs award and remanded the action to the wcab to be reconsidered in light of its decision in Wojciechowski v General Motors Corp, 151 Mich App 399; 390 NW2d 727 (1986).4
*403Plaintiff filed for leave to appeal to this Court. We granted leave upon the issue whether § 373(1) should be applied retroactively. 428 Mich 873 (1987).
i
Retrospective application of a statute is disfavored in the absence of explicit legislative intent to the contrary. McQueen v Great Markwestern Packing Co, 402 Mich 321; 262 NW2d 820 (1978); Harrison v Metz, 17 Mich 377, 378 (1868):
Courts will construe no law to have a retroactive effect, unless the legislative intent, that it shall so operate, expressly and clearly appears upon the face of the statute itself, and if a construction of any statute which shall limit it to a prospective effect only can be found, that is at the same time consistent with the express letter of such statute, such construction will universally be adopted.
Despite the general prohibition against retroactivity, procedural or remedial provisions which fail to unduly impair vested or accrued rights have been given retrospective application. Hansen-Snyder Co v General Motors Corp, 371 Mich 480; 124 NW2d 286 (1963). However, this oft-cited exception favoring retroactive application, frequently belies the difficulty inherent in balancing an uncertain legislative intent against ambiguous statutory provisions:
In dealing with the problem of retroactivity, it is extremely difficult to establish definite criteria upon which court decisions can be foretold. A statute must not act unreasonably upon the rights of those to whom it applies. What is reasonable and what is unreasonable is difficult to state in advance of actual decisions. ". . . [T]he method to *404be pursued is not the unerring pursuit of a fixed legal principle to an inevitable conclusion. Rather it is the method of intelligently balancing and discriminating between reasons for and against.” [2 Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction (4th ed), § 41.05, p 364.]
Section 373(l)’s legislative history is silent upon the Legislature’s intent regarding the applicability of this rebuttable presumption. Therefore, I find the provision presents three probable constructions: (1) §373(1) extends prospectively to claimants injured after its effective date, (2) the presumption extends to all benefits received after its effective date regardless of the retiree’s injury date, and (3) the provision governs all benefits received both prior to and after its effective date.
Our task is to thus balance these criteria against our own precedent in order to discern the construction which strikes the intended balance between the policies underlying § 373(1) and the wdca itself.
CASE LAW ANALYSIS
The question of the prospective versus retrospective application of several recent amendments of the wdca has been a recurrent one before the Court. Initially, in Selk v Detroit Plastic Products (On Resubmission), 419 Mich 32; 348 NW2d 652 (1984), the Court deemed the Legislature’s increase in interest per annum upon unpaid workers’ compensation benefits effective January 1, 1982,5 was a remedial act applicable retroactively, limited to any claimant regardless of their date of injury, who was either awarded or entitled to receive compensation after the provision’s effective date.
One year later, in Franks v White Pine Copper *405Div, 422 Mich 636; 375 NW2d 715 (1985), the Court concluded that §§ 354 and 358, which provided for the coordination of wdca payments with other employer-funded benefits, applied prospectively to claimants injured after the amendments’ effective dates and to those receiving benefits after the effective date regardless of their date of injury.6 However, most recently in Hurd v Ford Motor Co, supra, this Court determined that 1980 PA 357, which amended the wdca’s causation standard for mental-disability claims, applied prospectively solely to those injured after the provision took effect.
From our prior decisions, I discern the following pattern: (1) Each amendment contained a specific effective date. (2) In the instances concerning the amount of benefits to which a claimant was entitled (Selk, Franks), the Court disregarded the date of injury, finding a date of benefits received or awarded determinative.7 By contrast, in Hurd, the sole decision to address an amendment redefining a standard of benefit eligibility, the Court focused instead upon the date of injury as controlling in our construction of the provision’s effective date. In no instance has the Court disregarded both the date of injury and date of benefits received or awarded in order to impose total retroactivity upon a claimant.8_
*406SUBSTANTIVE v PROCEDURAL ASPECTS
Section 373(1) contains procedural elements which arguably favor retroactive application of the instant statute. The procedural nature of a rebut-table presumption is unquestioned. However, upon examination of the standards of disability applicable prior to the passage of § 373(1), I find that the provision has effected key substantive changes under the wdca:
1. The amendment designates retirees who terminate active employment under early retirement programs similar to defendant’s "30 and out” plan, as a class of claimants distinct from others seeking wdca benefits.
2. Section 373 presumes this class of claimants has not incurred a loss of wage-earning capacity due to a work-related injury. Prior to the amendment’s passage, retirees, as any other claimant, bore the burden of proving a loss of wage earning capacity.
3. A retiree-claimant may rebut the presumption only by a preponderance of evidence that the retiree is incapable due to a work-related injury of performing work within the retiree’s qualifications, training, or experience. Previously, the act focused upon the narrower issue of a claimant’s earning capacity within the claimant’s fíeld of employment.
4. Section 373 explicitly supersedes any standard of disability previously used to determine a claimant’s eligibility for benefits under chapters 3 and 4 of the wdca.
In my examination of the state of the law prior to § 373(l)’s enactment, it is readily apparent that the Legislature has chosen to impose a more stringent standard of disability upon the plaintiffs class of claimants.9 Although the definition of disability is couched within a procedural context, in *407light of its redefinition of a retiree’s disability standard, I conclude that § 373(l)’s substantive elements merit paramount consideration.10 Thus,
[i]n accordance with the rule applicable to original acts, it is presumed that provisions added by the amendment affecting substantive rights are intended to operate prospectively. Provisions added by the amendment that affect substantive rights will not be construed to apply to transactions and events completed prior to its enactment unless the legislature has expressed its intent to that effect or such intent is clearly implied by the language of the amendment or by the circumstances surrounding its enactment. [1A Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction (4th ed), § 22.36, pp 300-301.]
Because § 373(1) defines the substantive rule of disability and is therefore determinative of plaintiff’s eligibility, I find that the plaintiff’s rights in this instance, as with all others present under the wdca, accrued at the time of injury and that this factor militates in favor of prospective application.* 11
REMEDIAL COMPONENT OF § 373(1)
However, even in the instance of a purely or predominantly substantive rule, retroactive application may be employed where the provision is further deemed to be remedial in nature:
An exception to the general rule is recognized *408where a statute is remedial or procedural in nature. . . . Thus, statutes which operate in furtherance of a remedy or mode of procedure and which neither create new rights nor destroy, enlarge, or diminish existing rights are generally held to operate retrospectively unless a contrary legislative intention is manifested. [Franks, supra at 672. Emphasis added.]
The defendant argues and I agree that the instant provision is "remedial” in that it was designed to counter decades of alleged abuse under the workers’ compensation system:
For many years the most hotly discussed topic concerning the Michigan workers’ compensation system was the so-called "retiree problem.” It was almost unique to this State. Its legal underpinning was the notion developed by the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board, with some support from the judiciary . . ., that a retired worker, even one who had voluntarily retired and gone on a company-funded pension, could still be suffering from a loss of wage earning capacity. If the retiree could demonstrate that he or she had incurred a disability caused by pre-retirement job activity or working environment (a bad back from 30 years on the assembly line or a dust disease from 30 years in a foundry), the retiree was entitled to workers’ compensation. It should be emphasized that in many of these cases the disability was undoubtedly genuine, at least in the physical impairment sense, and such an employee would unquestionably be eligible for medical benefits. The fighting issue was whether he was also entitled to recover for wage loss. . . . [F]or a "Big Three” automobile manufacturer (the most common target of this practice), it was plainly provoking, not to mention costly, to see workers take early retirement and walk out of a plant one day and then proceed to file workers’ compensation claims the next week. [St. Antoine, Report on Workers’ Compensation in Michigan: Costs, Beneñts, and Fairness (1984), p 60.]
*409However, in Franks, this Court cautioned that this exception is inapplicable where " '[retroactive application would] also significantly and detrimentally affect the substantive right of certain injured employees to receipt of workers’ compensation benefits.’ ” Franks, supra at 673. (Emphasis added.)
The defendant argues that the instant provision does not impair plaintiff’s substantive right to benefits. I disagree. Defendant is correct that a claimant’s benefit levels are not vested so as to shield them from review at a future date:
The right to workmen’s compensation disability benefits depends on whether, at a given point in time, the claimant is within the statutory intendment. The scope of that intendment is subject to change. A determination that a claimant is not today entitled to disability benefits does not preclude reexamination of his entitlement should the facts or the law, by legislative amendment or court decision, change tomorrow. Entitlement to continuing disability benefits is an open question. [Hlady v Wolverine Bolt Co, 393 Mich 368, 391; 224 NW2d 856 (1975) (Levin, J., concurring).]
However, unlike the provisions addressed in Franks and Selk, supra, §373(1) embodies the substantive determination whether a retiree is entitled to any benefits. Although defendant asserts the provision does not truly concern benefit entitlement, in that it excludes medical benefits, I find the compensation excluded from § 373(1) is secondary to the basic entitlement to compensation benefits which sustain an injured employee’s livelihood.
Although defendant argues that § 373(1) should be applied only to benefits received after its effective date, I conclude that defendant’s construction would subject plaintiff to a substantive rule of law *410not in existence at the time his rights accrued under the wdca. This Court should be reticent to impose a stricter standard of review which could conceivably eliminate a claimant’s entitlement to compensation benefits where they were injured prior to January 1, 1982.12
CONCLUSION
Section 373(1) cannot be divorced from the wdca overall policy to balance economic fairness to employers against the protection of injured workers. Thus, in light of our prior decisions, the absence of clear legislative intent, and the statute’s predominant substantive effect upon a claimant’s entitlement to benefits, I would hold that § 373(1) is applicable solely to employees injured after its effective date. I would affirm the May 2, 1986, decision of the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board and vacate the peremptory reversal of the Court of Appeals.

 An employee who terminates active employment and is receiving nondisability pension or retirement benefits under either a private or governmental pension or retirement program, including old-age benefits under the social security act, 42 USC 301 to 1397f, that was paid by or on behalf of an employer from whom weekly benefits under this act are sought shall be presumed not to have a loss of earnings or earning capacity as the result of a compensable injury or disease under either this chapter or chapter 4. This presumption may be rebutted only by a preponderance of the evidence that the employee is unable, because of a work related disability, to perform work suitable to the employee’s qualifications, including training or experience. This standard of disability supersedes other applicable standards used to determine disability under either this chapter or chapter 4.

 At the time of plaintiffs injury and defendant’s wcab filing, the standard for benefit eligibility was well settled:
The test of an injured employee’s right to compensation is his inability by reason of the accident to work and earn wages in the employment at which he was engaged when injured. [Levanen v Seneca Copper Corp, 227 Mich 592, 601; 199 NW 652 (1924).]
See also Kaarto v Calumet & Hecla, Inc, 367 Mich 128; 116 NW2d 225 (1962); Kidd v General Motors Corp, 414 Mich 578; 327 NW2d 265 (1982).

 The terms "retroactive” and "retrospective” are synonymous in judicial usage and may be employed interchangeably. They describe acts which operate on transactions which have occurred or rights and obligations which existed before passage of the act. Although court opinions often designate statutes as either prospective or retrospective, the statutes in fact are often not susceptible to such clear characterization. Many statutes are both prospective and retrospective. Characterization thus may do nothing more than reflect a judgment concerning validity or interpretation, arrived at on other grounds. For example, it has been held that a statute is not rendered retroactive merely because the facts upon which its subsequent action depends are drawn from a time antecedent to its effective date. [2 Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction (4th ed), § 41.01, pp 337-338.]

 In Wojciechowski, the Court of Appeals construed § 373(1) to be procedural in nature and therefore retrospectively applicable to claimants injured prior to its effective date.

 See MCL 418.801(5); MSA 17.237(801X5).

 Section 354 concerned general employee benefits. Section 358 addressed unemployment benefits. In 1985 PA 103, §354(17), the Legislature overruled the portion of Franks applying § 354 to recipients injured prior to its effective date. The Legislature did not act with regard to § 358.

 The reference to Franks now extends solely to its discussion of 1980 PA 357, § 358.

 The absence of a total retrospective application in these decisions is in accord with the well-settled rule that the presence of a specific effective date is indicative of the Legislature’s intent to limit the act’s retroactivity. See Selk, supra at 36 (Levin, J., dissenting); 2 Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction (4th ed), § 41.02, p 342, n 3.

 For an excellent discussion of disability under the wdca prior to the passage of § 373(1), see Comment, Disability under the Michigan worker’s compensation act, 62 U Det L R 433 (1985).

 Accord, 2 Sands, Sutherland Statutory Construction (4th ed), § 41.09, p 397.

 Cf. Wright v State Accident Ins Fund, 43 Or App 279; 602 P2d 1086 (1979), rev’d on other grounds 289 Or 323; 613 P2d 755 (1980), which held an amendment to the presumption of disability applied to fire fighters under the Oregon wdca applied to those injured prior to its effective date because it did not effect a substantive change in the plaintiff’s burden of proof.

 The fact that this individual claimant may be able to rebut the § 373(1) presumption (see ante, p 401 for the hearing referee’s findings), is not dispositive. Our construction must be premised upon the provision’s effect at large and in light of the other factors examined in this opinion.