Court Opinion

ID: 9574225
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:03:28.342057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:15.538685
License: Public Domain

Riley, J.
(dissenting). Because I believe that the majority advocates a highly subjective standard for work-related mental disabilities, contrary to the 1980 amendments of the Worker’s Disability Compensation Act, I respectfully dissent.1
As this Court stated in Hurd v Ford Motor Co, 423 Mich 531; 377 NW2d 300 (1985), the legislative amendments of the wdca specifically addressed and rejected this Court’s formulation of the entitlement to worker’s disability benefits for mental disabilities in Deziel v Difco Laboratories, Inc (After Remand), 403 Mich 1, 26; 268 NW2d 1 (1978). In Deziel, the majority created a strictly subjective causal nexus between incidents of employment and the disability, which permitted a claimant to establish compensable injury with "honest[ ] perceptions]” of work events despite any consideration of reality. The three dissenting justices believed that the new test was a significant departure from the longstanding requirement that a claimant must establish, as a matter of fact, that the alleged work event "aggravate^], accelerate[d], or combine[d] with some internal weakness or disease to produce the disability.” Id. at 61 (Coleman, J., dissenting), quoting 1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 12.20, p 3-381.2
*63My dispute with the majority’s ruling regards the causal nexus between work-related incidents and their contribution to a mental disability, which must be "actual” as well as "significant.” See MCL 418.301(2); MSA 17.237(301)(2).3 As I understand it, the 1980 amendments of the wdca created a form of "objective” criteria with which to assess the merits of a worker’s disability claim. Otherwise, there would be no way to narrow or restrict the applicable eligibility qualifications, which was the distinct purpose of reform efforts. See Farrington v Total Petroleum, Inc, 442 Mich 201, 216, n 16; 501 NW2d 76 (1993);4 Dean v Chrysler Corp, 434 Mich 655, 666-667; 455 NW2d 699 (1990); VanderLaan & Studley, Workers’ compensation reform: A case study of the legislative process in Michigan, 14 U Mich J L Ref 451, 459-460 (1981).
The difficulty lies in distinguishing between a worsening of condition resulting from a work-related event and a mere manifestation of a preexisting mental disability occurring at the workplace. The statute as amended makes clear that the work incidents must be "actual events of employment, not unfounded perceptions thereof.” *64MCL 418.301(2); MSA 17.237(301)(2). The majority, however, attempts to blur the distinction between manifestation and causation by distinguishing between "unfounded perceptions” and "imagined or hallucinatory events.”5 Ante, p 44. The former would always have a cause under the majority view, while the latter would never have a basis in an actual event.
In this way, the majority establishes the first element of a causal nexus in cases in which there is anything that could be viewed as an actual, work-related event regardless of its propensity to traumatize. Thus, even the most innocuous of work-related events could establish causation without regard to the degree and nature of a preexisting mental disability.6 The only question left would be the significance of the harm to the mental *65disability, which is a subjective standard. I am unable to discern any form of objective criterion in the majority’s formulation of the standard that effectuates the objectivity mandated by the amendments of MCL 418.301(2); MSA 17.237(301)(2). See Farrington, Dean, and VanderLaan & Studley, supra.
As the dissenting justices argued in Deziel:
Most neurotic and psychotic states do not have a single cause-in-fact and are emotional disorders with a pre-existing, extremely complex etiology originating in childhood. Symptoms are usually preceded by some form of trauma, however minor.8 The relationship between such trauma and symptoms is more chronological than causal.
The job becomes a convenient "hook” upon which to hang all one’s troubles .... Similarly, the suggestive effect of the legal emphasis upon the causative role of the job, necessary to recovery, will not often be lost on the worker who hangs his life’s problems on the "hook” of some trivial stimulus or trauma. Indeed, it is the common conclusion of psychiatrists that the compensation process promotes neuroses and has a debilitating effect upon claimants.
[403 Mich 53-54, 57 (Coleman, J., dissenting)[7]
I believe that a claimant for a work-related mental disability must establish by a preponderance of the evidence, as a matter of objective reality, an actual and traumatic event. Otherwise, the danger that the alleged harm is a mere mani*66festation of an underlying problem and not a cause is too great. A successful claim should require proof of speciñc incidents and not merely general conclusions of stress, anxiety, or exertion over a period of time. See Miklik v Michigan Special Machine Co, 415 Mich 364, 370; 329 NW2d 713 (1982) (a disability claim for an allegedly work-related heart condition). In this way, we would honor the legislative intent as well as preserve the distinction between causation and manifestation.
In Carter v General Motors Corp, 361 Mich 577; 106 NW2d 105 (1960), this Court first recognized a work-related mental disability aggravated by ordinary conditions of employment. However, careful review of Carter indicates that the work events found highly stressful by the plaintiff occurred over a continuous, two-week period. See id. at 580-581. Accordingly, Carter does not support the proposition that long-term stress, anxiety, or exertion objectively satisfies the actual event requirement as a matter of objective reality.
Moreover, the plaintiff in Carter suffered from an emotional collapse on the final day of the two-week period that led to his hospitalization. Accordingly, there was a clear physical effect of the trauma occurring in the midst of the work-related stress that objectively supported the stress as the actual cause of the mental disability.8
Without a recognizable, stressful event or at least a physical manifestation of injury occurring close in time to the alleged event, it would be virtually impossible to determine with a fair degree of certainty whether the allegations of work-*67related injury are actualities or misperceptions in the absence of expert testimony on the matter. The effect of the majority view would be to make employers the insurers of their workers’ wage losses for mental disabilities without necessarily establishing an adequate causal link.
Thus, I am compelled to dissent.
Griffin, J., concurred with Riley, J.

 See 1980 PA 357. The relevant provisions took effect on January 1, 1982.

 Professor Larson has also stated:
*63The subjective causal nexus test has not fared well since its bold unveiling by the Michigan Supreme Court in 1978. The Michigan legislature repudiated it in 1982, by enacting an amendment stating that "mental disabilities shall be compensable when arising out of actual events of employment, not unfounded perceptions thereof.” Alaska, Iowa, Oregon, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have emphatically rejected the doctrine. The only kind words for it have come from California, in an intermediate appellate court opinion. [1B Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 42.23(d), pp 7-931 to 7-935. Citations omitted.]

 In MCL 418.401(2)(b); MSA 17.237(401)(2)(b), which defines mental disability and other conditions of the aging process, the Legislature used the same "significant manner” language.

 See also id. at 225-229 (Riley, J., dissenting in part).

 In effect, the majority strikes the term "unfounded perception” from the statute on the basis that its import would lead to an absurd result. Instead, only purely imagined or hallucinatory events are excluded from coverage under § 301 of the wdca. Ante, p 44. In response, I call attention to the longstanding rule of construction that "[ejvery word of a statute should be given meaning and no word should be treated as surplusage or rendered nugatory if at all possible.” Baker v General Motors Corp, 409 Mich 639, 665; 297 NW2d 387 (1980).
In my opinion, the term "unfounded perceptions” is easily reconciled with the rest of the statutory language. As long as the alleged trauma is objectively verifiable, its propensity for contribution to a preexisting condition is established. The only hurdle remaining is for the claimant to prove that the event contributed to or accelerated the preexisting mental condition in a significant manner.
In this way, we would also preserve the distinction between manifestation and causation. Moreover, this view preserves the objective criteria added by the 1980 amendments of the wdca and previously recognized by this Court. See, e.g., Hurd, supra.

 An example of this would be an ordinary work request such as a request for some work on overtime that the employee interprets as a conspiracy for termination based on a preexisting mental condition. First, any reaction may be a manifestation of the preexisting condition that could be misinterpreted as the worsening of condition. Second, any worsening of condition that could occur would be from the misperception rather than from the work-related event. Accordingly, I would require that the event itself bear some indicia of trauma that may be verified on an objective basis.

 Symptoms are the manifestations of the mental disorder. They represent an attempt by the neurotic personality to resolve inner problems and create psychic gain.

 See also Peters v Michigan Bell Telephone Co, 423 Mich 594, 623-624; 377 NW2d 774 (1985) (Riley, J., dissenting).

 See also 1B Larson, n 2 supra, § 42.25(c), p 7-960 (citing jurisdictions, including Michigan, that permit recovery in either sudden-stimulus or gradual-stimulus situations with "the insistence on having something physical to cling to”).