Court Opinion

ID: 9657576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:30:43.015783+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:05:50.225942
License: Public Domain

Souris, J.
(dissenting). Wé granted rehearing of this appeal to reconsider only one of the three issues decided unanimously in 378 Mich 689. That issue is whether disability benefits provided by section 10 of part 2 of our workmen’s compensation law1 for specific losses of anatomical members are subject to the minimum and maximum limitations upon benefits contained in part 2, section 9.2 On rehearing, my Brother O’HaRa concludes, contrary to our prior decision, that they are.
He states that this Court, previous to our original decision in this case, had so construed the act; yet, he cites no case in which this Court rendered such a construction of the act. The fact is that this Court never before had considered the issue- we decided on the first decision of this appeal. It is true, apparently, that the appeal board and the practitioners before that board had assumed that the limitations apply to specific losses, but such assumptions are mighty weak reeds to' support a proud appellate court’s construction of statutory language absent any showing that the assumed construction is consistent with the legislative scheme of compensation. No one, not even Justice O’Hara, yet has demonstrated that the legislature intended the limitations to apply to specific loss benefits. In fact, in our previous decision, at pages 703 to 705, we analyzed the legislative scheme of compensation and concluded, unanimously, that our holding, now challenged, was consistent therewith. Without *524even acknowledgment of that substantive analysis of the act, Justice O’Hara would reverse our decision simply because it upset the assumption of the appeal board and because, he concludes mistakenly, the concept of minimum and maximum limitations upon compensation benefits is a settled, universal principle of our compensation law.
To paraphrase my Brother, there is no vested right in the continuation of appeal board error in the construction of a statute. It may be conceded that all courts- should give “the most respectful consideration” (United States v. Moore [1878], 95 US 760 [24 L ed 588], as quoted in Boyer-Campbell Co. v. Fry [1935], 271 Mich 282, relied upon by Justice O’Haea) to the construction of a statute by those agencies charged with its administration; but their error of construction, however prolonged it may be, cannot be allowed by a court to foreclose its reasoned decision that the statute does not say what the administrators mistakenly believe it says. “Cogent reason” (again from United States v. Moore, supra) exists for overruling an administrative construction when a court concludes, as this Court did unanimously, that the legislative language compels a contrary construction and when such contrary construction based upon a “grammatical analytical approach” (see Justice O’Hara’s opinion on rehearing) is consistent with the legislative scheme of compensation, as we found it to be in our substantive analysis of the act at pages 703-705 of our original opinion.
It is not true that minimum and maximum limitations apply to all other compensation benefits payable under our act. Consequently, the argument that such limitations therefore must have been intended to apply, as well, to specific loss benefits is specious. The fact is, as was noted in our previous substantive analysis of the legislative scheme of *525compensation, that of the other compensation benefits payable, minimum and maximum limitations apply only to “cases of total incapacity for work, where the injured worker theoretically retains no wage-earning capacity [and where] * * * the legislature impose [d] a minimum weekly benefit limitation, see part 2, § 9(a), in recognition of the need in such cases to provide at least a minimum subsistence level of benefits for that injured employee whose average weekly wage before injury was small.” 378 Mich 689, 704. For all other workers whose incapacity for work is partial, there is no minimum limitation, but only a maximum, presumably because those workers likely are able to earn some wages during their disability. For those who suffer specific losses and who may or may not be disabled from earning wages, there is no minimum benefit limitation and the only maximum limitation is that provided by the specific loss paragraph of section 10 — two-thirds of claimant’s average weekly wage. No one yet has pointed out any error in the logic by which we reasoned to this conclusion in our first decision:
“Our construction of the first sentence of the last paragraph of section 10, making it applicable only to the total and permanent disabilities defined in the provisions immediately preceding that sentence, is entirely consistent with the scheme of compensation benefits devised by the legislature, imposing maximum limitations determined by the number of a claimant’s dependents upon all, weekly benefits except for specific losses and imposing minimum limitations, similarly determined, only upon weekly benefits for total incapacity.” 378 Mich 689, 704, 705.
Accordingly, I would reaffirm our previous decision and, upon remand for further proceedings, I would order the appeal board to recompute plain*526tiff’s weekly benefit rate in accordance with. Part III of onr original opinion at 378 Mich 689. I would also allow plaintiff his costs on this rehearing.
T. M. KavaNagh, J., concurred with Souris, J.

 CLS 1961, § 412.10 (Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 17.160).

 CLS 1961, § 412.9 (Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 17.159).