Court Opinion

ID: 9533720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:34:09.280962+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:08.671705
License: Public Domain

Shepherd, J.
(dissenting). We are called upon to interpret the meaning of "a handicap that is unrelated to the individual’s ability to perform the duties of a particular job or position.” MCL 37.1202(l)(b); MSA 3.550(202)(l)(b). In my view, the majority opinion does not adequately take into account the factor of time. Does the statute mean *747that an employee may be discharged if he has a handicap at a given moment in time that prevents him from performing his duties if the handicap can be remedied at a future time so long as the delay does not stand in the way of the employer’s need to have the job done? I think not.
The statute defines a handicap in the following terms:
(b) "Handicap” means a determinable physical or mental characteristic of an individual or a history of the characteristic which may result from disease, injury, congenital condition of birth, or functional disorder which characteristic:
(i) . . . is unrelated to the individual’s ability to perform the duties of a particular job or position, or is unrelated to the individual’s qualifications for employment or promotion. [MCL 37.1103; MSA 3.550(103). Emphasis added.]
Was plaintiffs condition a "characteristic”? He had been in an automobile accident and had an injured leg which was expected to heal in two months. As I understand the term "characteristic,” the word implies a "distinctive character, quality, feature or attribute ... a trait, feature or quality that designates the identifying and especially the intrinsic feature.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, New College Edition, p 226 (1978). I conclude that a temporary disability that can, within the particular employment context, be remedied within a reasonable time is not a handicap for which an employee may be discharged. Otherwise, an employee who needs his eyeglasses to work could be discharged if he broke them, even if they could be replaced within hours. My essential point is that the factor of time must be taken into account.
In this case, the employer had at least one other *748employee on layoff status who could have been recalled. In fact, this is my understanding of what occurred. The temporary disability was not a characteristic that created any production problem for the employer. In the employer’s mind he could have easily put plaintiff on medical leave. This was the employer’s general policy and he did not do so here because, according to plaintiff’s version of the facts, he believed plaintiff presented an increased risk of filing a workers’ compensation claim. This is evidence that this was the real motivation of the employer. The employer’s interpretation of the Handicappers’ Civil Rights Act is a subterfuge for a different agenda. The act was intended to shield employees from discharge by reason of a handicap that does not prevent them from doing their job. It was not designed for use as a sword by employers to get rid of undesired employees. If plaintiff can prove his allegations, the employer should not be allowed to pervert the statute in this manner.
The majority opinion relies on Carr v General Motors Corp, 425 Mich 313; 389 NW2d 686 (1986). However, in Carr the employee was permanently disabled so I do not agree that the case fits into the pattern of the facts of the instant matter. Furthermore, Carr quotes from the 1976 Senate Journal:
[I]f a handicapped person seeking employment meets the qualifications of the job and can attain the performance levels required within a reasonable time, he must, by law be given the same opportunity as other applicants to secure the position [1976 Senate Journal 590]. [Emphasis added. Id., p 319.]
Thus, even if plaintiff were handicapped, the employer must have afforded him a reasonable *749time to heal his wounds on the same conditions as other employees. The testimony that the employer would have placed him on sick leave were it not for the increased workers’ compensation risk is strong evidence that plaintiff was not treated equally with other employees.
I now turn to the second use that plaintiff makes of the employer’s statement that plaintiff was fired because he was an increased workers’ compensation risk. Plaintiff has filed a separate cause of action claiming that it is against the public policy of this state for employers to discharge employees for that reason.
Prior to the adoption of MCL 418.301(11); MSA 17.237(301)(11), this Court held that it was against public policy to discharge an employee who filed a workers’ compensation claim. Sventko v The Kroger Co, 69 Mich App 644; 245 NW2d 151 (1976). Subsection 11 states:
A person shall not discharge an employee or in any manner discriminate against an employee because the employee filed a complaint or instituted or caused to be instituted a proceeding under this act or because of the exercise by the employee on behalf of himself or herself or others of a right afforded by this act.
The Court felt free to conclude that on policy grounds the workers’ compensation statute should be interpreted to prohibit retaliatory discharge. The Legislature proceeded to codify this decision in subsection 11. Wilson v Acacia Park Cemetery Ass’n, 162 Mich App 638; 413 NW2d 79 (1987), then held that the amended statute does not cover discharges for anticipated future claims. I cannot agree.
Independently of plaintiff’s collective bargaining *750rights, which were minimal, the question is whether an employer may terminate a current employee based solely on the employer’s subjective view that the employee poses a higher workers’ compensation risk than other employees. The majority opinion takes the view that the Legislature of this state believes that employers may arbitrarily select out any employee for termination on no basis other than such a subjective perception. The only rationale for this view, as stated in Wilson v Acacia Park Cemetery Ass’n, supra, is that when subsection 11 was adopted it did not include terminations for future claims. It did, however, include terminations for "the exercise of the employee on behalf of himself or herself or others of a right afforded by this act.”
I conclude that one such right is the right of an at-risk employable worker to continue working and file a claim in the future if his or her condition warrants such action. I cannot conceive that the Legislature intended that, upon adoption of the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act, employers could go through the workplace and eliminate all workers who were in the smallest measure likely to file claims in the future. The act was not adopted to create an elite corps of physically fit employed workers and another corps of less fit unemployed nonworkers. An act to remedy the scourge of industrial accidents was not intended to create a permanent class of unemployable men and women whose only sin is to be less fit than Superman or Wonderwoman. Perhaps this was the thought behind Hrab v Hayes-Albion Corp, 103 Mich App 90; 302 NW2d 606 (1981), which allowed recovery for a discharge that was designed to forestall the filing of a workers’ compensation claim.
In the last analysis, even if subsection 11 itself *751may not be interpreted to include future claims, I submit that if this Court could use public policy as a basis for the decision in Sventko before the adoption of subsection 11, we may do so after its adoption. I would reverse and remand for trial.