Court Opinion

ID: 9670378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:19:41.655817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:04.157257
License: Public Domain

Brickley, J.
(concurring).
i
As the majority aptly points out, personal bias and predilection live within all of us to one degree or another. Those who exercise judicial or quasi-judicial duties are no exception. We nonetheless, in our objective of achieving as much fairness as possible, build procedures and systems that are designed to minimize the effects of such shortcomings. The most obvious kinds of bias that rise to constitutional infirmity are those that arise when decision making also affects personal interests. See, e.g., Connally v Georgia, 429 US 245; 97 S Ct 546; 50 L Ed 2d 444 (1977). These are the easiest to identify, and also the easiest to avoid by procedures for disqualification and the like.
There are more subtle biases and interests that are more difficult to identify or to remove from the system. An example is one of the claims made by the defendant in this case when it suggests that the appeal board members are biased because, if they deviate from their economic interest identification, they will threaten their reappointment. Such an interest is of course almost always present to one degree or another for any decision-maker in any branch of government who is subject to appointment or election. This type of interest is endemic to a democratic system, and for that reason is within tolerable constitutional limits.
Not to be confused with bias are philosophical views and value judgments that also reside within all of us that do not normally disqualify a person from rendering a fair decision, even though they *626influence the decisionmaker and the decision. The electorate or appointing authorities can and do elect and appoint persons of the same or divergent economic and social backgrounds and views. Boards and commissions may not discriminate or exercise bias, but they may exercise economic and social preferences in the formulation of their policies and decisions, particularly where such preferences are a part of the legislative scheme.
Workers’ compensation and the systems and procedures for its implementation are examples of this. It would not necessarily be unconstitutional for the Legislature, as a matter of policy, to choose to weight decision making in favor of either employee or employer interests where it is rationally related to a legitimate government purpose. Decisions regarding how to organize a quasi-administrative body are essentially the product of the political process. However, the constitutionality of a consistently weighted procedure is not the question before us. Instead, we have before us a system that on its face is intended to give equal weight to the employee and employer interests but, at the same time, not only allows, but specifically provides, that similarly situated parties within an interest class are occasionally and randomly subjected to a different balance than others. Again, it is not the balance or the imbalance, as such, with which we should be concerned; rather, it is that the balance is shifted for some litigants. This, if anything, raises equal protection concerns in light of the fact that the change in balance is completely random and apparently without a rational basis.1
*627II
The majority posits that the board members are not biased out of personal interests, and I agree. However, the majority reaches two further conclusions with which I do not agree. First, it concludes that board members do not represent an ongoing economic interest. Second, the majority holds that even if board members are representative of a particular interest the fact that a public member is always a member of a two-person panel cures the problem, since the worst that could happen is a tie vote which would be ultimately broken by a member of the interest that was not on the two-member panel.
A
The majority reads §251, which is at issue in this case, as only indicating the background from which an appointee should come, not as to how the appointee shall carry out required duties. Section 251 is as follows:
A worker’s compensation appeal board is created, referred to in this act as the board. Except as provided for in subsection (2), the board shall consist of 15 members, a majority of whom shall be attorneys at law who are members in good standing of the state bar of Michigan. Except as provided for in subsection (2), of the board members, 5 shall be representative of employee interests in the state, 5 members shall be representative of employer interests of the state, and 5 members shall be representative of the general public. A member of the board shall devote his or her entire time to and personally perform the duties of the office and shall not engage in other business or professional activity. The governor, with the advice and consent of the senate, shall *628appoint the members for a term of 4 years, and until their successors are appointed and qualified. A vacancy shall be filled for an unexpired term in the same manner as the original appointment. The governor shall designate the chairperson of the board from among the members to serve at the pleasure of the governor. A member of the appeal board may be removed by the governor for good cause. Good cause for removal shall include, but not be limited to, lack of productivity or other neglect of duties.
Section 251 does not provide, as the majority suggests, that board members are to be appointed from a specific group, but that they then must act as purely neutral decisionmakers. Instead, the provision states that "of the board members, 5 shall be representative of . . . .” It is hard to believe that a newly appointed board member reading this provision of the statute would not conclude the interest to "be representative of’ is the interest of those who nominated the member or the interest indicated in the appointment documents forwarded to the Senate.
If there is any doubt about the intention of the Legislature, or the understanding or expectation of the appointee, it is resolved by reading §261 which provides that two members of the same representation designation cannot sit together on a two-person panel. What clearer public policy indication could there be that they are expected to vote from the point of view of a particular economic interest.
For these reasons, I would conclude that the board members are expected to represent a particular point of view. While the majority concludes that it would be neglect of duty for a panel mem*629ber to act as an agent of an interest group,2 the language of the statute makes equally plausible the view that a failure to "represent” the points of view of the appointee’s interest group would also constitute a neglect of duty.
B
The majority suggests for the sake of argument that even if there is ongoing representational interests on the part of the board members, it is sufficiently diluted under the scheme of §261 because the vote of a representative of either the employer or employee interest that is adverse to a litigant of the opposite interests would be checked by the vote of the public member, thus resulting in a tie and bringing in the missing interest. I am not persuaded by this argument. Those of us who serve on multiple-person tribunals are aware of the dynamics of this kind of decision making and the influence that can be exercised by those who are present when the decision is made. As Justice Brennan stated in discussing the concerns raised where one member of a multimember court is biased,
The description of an opinion as being "for the court” connotes more than merely that the opinion has been joined by a majority of the participating judges. It reflects the fact that these judges have exchanged ideas and arguments in deciding the case. It reflects the collective process of deliberation which shapes the court’s perceptions of which issues must be addressed and, more importantly, how they must be addressed. And, while the influence of any single participant in this process can never be measured with precision, experience teaches us that each member’s involve*630ment plays a part in shaping the court’s ultimate disposition. [Aetna Life Ins Co v Lavoie, 475 US 813, 831; 106 S Ct 1580; 89 L Ed 2d 823 (1986) (Brennan, J., concurring).]
I cannot agree that an employer litigant who appears before a panel made up of a general public representative and an employee representative is, because of the presence of the general public member, not treated differently than most other litigants or that this difference in treatment has a rational basis.
CONCLUSION
Despite my disagreement on these points I would not necessarily find questionable in a constitutional sense either the concept of interest-group representation or interest-group imbalance of the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board. What I do find unfair is the fact that other employers situated similarly to the defendant in every respect would have found themselves before a two-member panel comprised either of one employer representative and one representative of the general public, one employee representative and one employer representative, or two representatives of the general public. By random selection, this defendant finds himself before the only panel composition that places him at a disadvantage more than other litigants similarly situated.
It is not in my view the weighting of this panel itself, but the irrational manner in which this litigant has been singled out for a less favorable and receptive panel than others similarly situated that raises a constitutional question. However, since this would amount to an equal protection challenge and since the defendant raises only a *631due process bias question which I do not find to be present here, I join the result of the majority.3
Levin, J., concurred with Brickley, J.

 Higgins v Monroe Evening News, 404 Mich 1, 26; 272 NW2d 537 (1978) (Kavanagh, C.J., dissenting) (" 'Legislation is invalid on equal protection grounds if it creates classifications which are without reasonable bases and are purely arbitrary,’ ” quoting Higgins v Monroe Evening News, 70 Mich App 407, 418; 245 NW2d 769 [1976]).

 Ante, p 617, n 21.

 For preservation of constitutional issues see Butcher v Dep’t of Treasury, 425 Mich 262, 276; 389 NW2d 412 (1986).