Court Opinion

ID: 9535117
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:45:39.093784+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:10.400710
License: Public Domain

Taylor, J.
(dissenting). I believe that the decedent’s death is not compensable under the worker’s compensation act because the work-related injury was not its sole proximate cause. Thus, I would affirm the result reached by the Court of Appeals and the wcac.
Plaintiff’s decedent, Keith Hagerman, incurred a work-related back injury in 1987. By the latter part of 1989, he could no longer work, his last day of work being December 20, 1989. After leaving work Mr. Hagerman underwent a myelogram at the direction of his physician. Medical personnel advised him to consume large amounts of water before and after the procedure. This he did, apparently drinking twenty to twenty-five quarts of water in the thirty-six hours following the myelogram. Unfortunately, Mr. Hagerman also suffered from non-work-related high blood pressure and took Aldoril, a diuretic, to treat this condition. The combination of the increased water consumption and the diuretic depleted sodium levels in his body. While sleeping, he suffered a convulsion or seizure. At some point, either during this initial seizure or later, Mr. Hagerman aspirated the contents of his stomach into his lungs, causing him to develop aspiration pneumonia. During an extended hospital stay his condition worsened. Mr. Hagerman’s doctors had difficulty treating his pneumonia, and the treatment he received further damaged his lungs. Ultimately his family instructed his physicians to remove *751various life support systems and he was designated as a “no code,” meaning he would be allowed to die. Mr. Hagerman subsequently died of cardiac arrest.
The Court is presented with the question whether the worker’s compensation statute, specifically MCL 418.375(2); MSA 17.237(375)(2), warrants an award of death benefits to Mr. Hagerman’s survivors. Under subsection 375(2) dependents of a deceased employee are paid death benefits if the work-related injury was “the proximate cause” of the death. The majority concludes that this standard has been met. I disagree.
Section 3011 articulates what a claimant must show to establish a compensable injury generally under worker’s compensation. Injured employees are paid worker’s compensation benefits for injuries “arising out of and in the course of employment.” It is agreed by all that this is a liberal standard: The claimant need only show a reasonable relation of cause and effect between work and injury. No showing of proximate cause is necessary, and indeed other possible or probable causes of the injury do not have to be excluded beyond doubt. Kepsel v McCready & Sons, 345 Mich 335, 343-344; 76 NW2d 30 (1956). In using the new language of subsection 301(1) to allow recovery by the worker when the injury arose out of and in the course of employment, the Legislature lowered *752the burden from the venerable tort language of causation that had previously controlled.2
However, when it comes to death benefits, subsection 375(2)3 contains an additional hurdle not present for the claimant merely qualifying for benefits as a result of injury or immediate death. Under subsection 375(2), death benefits are paid if the work-related injuiy was “the proximate cause” of the employee’s subsequent death. Id. This distinction in the triggering causation between these two sections of the act must be given meaning. Altman v Meridian Twp, 439 Mich 623, 635; 487 NW2d 155 (1992), reh den 440 Mich 1204 (1992); Melia v Employment Security Comm, 346 Mich 544, 562; 78 NW2d 273 (1956).
My primary objection to the majority’s resolution of this question is that its construction of the phrase “the proximate cause,” as used in subsection 375(2), negates any meaningful distinction between the words “a” and “the” preceding the phrase “proximate cause.”
As a term of art, “proximate cause,” was well known in the law at the time the predecessor of sub*753section 375(2) was enacted in 1912. Historically, proximate cause has been seen as that which was not a “secondary or remote cause.” Beall v Athens Twp, 81 Mich 536, 540; 45 NW 1014 (1890). Put differently, this Court has characterized proximate cause as “the immediate efficient, direct cause preceding the injury.” Stoll v Laubengayer, 174 Mich 701, 706; 140 NW 532 (1913).
Moreover, as noted by the majority, it has been well established in our law that there may be more than one proximate cause in any given case. Ante, pp 731-734. The Legislature explicitly demonstrated that it understood this facet of the law, i.e., multiple proximate causation, when it enacted the predecessors of MCL 418.141; MSA 17.237(141) and MCL 418.827; MSA 17.237(827). Section 141 removes negligence of the employee or a coemployee from consideration when the claimant seeks compensation for injuries or death sustained in the course of employment. Section 827 indicates that an employer will be fully compensated for worker’s compensation payments made if an award for the same injury is obtained from a third party.
Given this nuanced understanding of “proximate cause” at the time this statute was enacted, one must then look to the meaning of “the proximate cause.”
Traditionally in our law, to say nothing of our classrooms, we have recognized the difference between “the” and “a.” “The” is defined as “definite article. 1. (used, esp. before a noun, with a specifying or particularizing effect, as opposed to the indefinite or generalizing force of the indefinite article a or an). . . .” Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, p 1382. Further, we must follow these distinctions between *754“a” and “the” as the Legislature has directed that “[a]ll words and phrases shall be construed and understood according to the common and approved usage of the language . . . MCL 8.3a; MSA 2.212(1). Moreover, there is no indication that the words “the” and “a” in common usage meant something different at the time this statute was enacted in 1912 than they do today.4
Consequently, I would apply the words of subsection 375(2) as written and confine my analysis to ascertaining whether Keith Hagerman’s work-related back injury was “the proximate cause” of his death, applying that term as normally understood in tort law at the time that the act was adopted.5 It is acknowledged that Mr. Hagerman’s injury was not, in itself, a hfe-threatening condition. In fact, again as all acknowledge, there were a series of tragic and unlikely events following his workplace injury that occasioned his death. This means, applying the law as understood at the time of the enactment of this statute, that the injury was not the proximate cause of his *755death.6 At most it was a proximate cause of the death.7 Consequently, I would hold that the Court of Appeals did not err in affirming the Worker’s Compensation Appellate Commission conclusion that no death benefits should be awarded in this case.
To avoid the statutory language’s requirement of sole proximate causation, the majority finds the words “a” and “the” synonymous.8 To do so, the *756majority defines proximate cause as the “primary or moving” force, noting that the term therefore contains within it recognition that there can be other forces that contribute to an injury. Ante, p 729. This is clearly correct in the sense that, as anyone would recognize, many forces, as causes in fact, contribute to an event. Moreover, as the majority takes great pains to explain, our jurisprudence recognizes generally that there may be more than one proximate cause of a single injury. Yet the inevitability of multiple causes in fact and the possibility of the existence of multiple proximate causes does not negate that there may be only one proximate cause in a given case.
Contrary to the assertion of the majority, nothing in the term “proximate cause” itself forecloses the limiting effect of the word “the.” Recognition that a proximate cause may be one of many only reinforces the notion that we must apply the commonly understood distinction between “the proximate cause,” meaning the sole proximate cause, and “a proximate cause,” meaning one of potentially many. The majority’s assertion that the text of subsection 375(2) does not itself articulate a requirement of sole proximate cause demonstrates a fundamental unwillingness to apply the plain meaning of the text as written by the Legislature. Contrary to the majority’s strained analysis, this case is really not complex and simply requires us to adhere to the fundamental judicial discipline to comply with the Legislature’s decisions as reflected in *757the statutes it enacts, regardless of whether it is the decision we would have wished it to make.9
Yet, by replacing what the Legislature actually said by unwarrantedly creating a hybrid definition of “the proximate cause” previously unknown, the majority runs afoul of the concept and purpose of law itself, which is to enable our citizens, and those who advise them, to know prospectively what the law is and thus to be able to conform their conduct to what it requires. For a court to refuse to give the words of a statute their accepted meaning makes the law unpredictable and moves in the direction of a system with merely a conglomeration of rules and rulings, changeable arbitrarily and without notice, which is the antithesis of law. This is of great importance, and the precedent the majority establishes will undoubtedly be seen by this Court again as litigants in later cases utilize this holding to argue for the rewriting of other statutes on little other basis than, as here, that the change is advisable.
I further disagree with the majority because the cases it cites do not support its result. Contrary to the majority’s reading, these cases suggest that a work-*758related injury may be deemed to be the proximate cause of an employee’s subsequent death if the plaintiff shows the injury was a substantial factor in the death and the evidence does not raise a genuine issue regarding whether some other cause was a proximate cause of the death. Several cases cited by the majority simply address whether the work-related injury satisfied the causation standard applicable for injury/nonimmediate death cases.10 In others, the issue presented was whether the evidence was sufficient to find that the injury was a proximate cause of the death.11 Two cases cited by the majority concern nonimmediate death, and contain some language regarding sole causation. See Monk v Charcoal Iron Co of America, 246 Mich 193; 224 NW 354 (1929), and Neumeier v City of Menominee, 293 Mich 646; 292 NW 511 (1940). However, a close examination of these cases demonstrates they are not dispositive in this case.
Monk relied on case law inapplicable to the question presented in this case, citing La Veck v Parke, Davis & Co, 190 Mich 604; 157 NW 72 (1916), and Schroetke v Jackson-Church Co, 193 Mich 616; 160 NW 383 (1916), and made statements referencing “sole, proximate” causation without the analysis of the key distinction between the differing standards that must be met, depending on whether there was an injury/immediate death or nonimmediate death. Addi*759tionally, reading this Court’s opinion in Nemneier, swpra, in context, one understands that the Court did not have before it evidence that some extrinsic force was a proximate cause of the death. Under such facts the Court simply relied on prior case law that had been decided on the basis that the evidence presented was sufficient to show that the work-related injury was a proximate cause of the injury.
However, more relevant to this case is the decision in Byrne v Clark Equipment Co, 302 Mich 167; 4 NW2d 509 (1942), which supports the conclusion that the failure to attribute sole proximate causation to the workplace injury cuts off the employer’s liability in cases of nonimmediate death. In Byrne, the decedent suffered a hernia at work, and, during the resulting surgery, the physician also removed the decedent’s appendix. After the operation, the decedent contracted an infection and died. This Court concluded that, under these facts, the claimant had failed to establish that the work-related injury was the proximate cause of the death.
Notably, the Court’s analysis demonstrates that a “but for” causal link (i.e., but for the injury the surgery would not have been performed and defendant exposed to the risk of surgery) is insufficient to establish compensability under subsection 375(2). Thus, the majority’s adoption of a “but for” analysis, “aggravating medical consequences will not break the chain of causation where the injury necessitates foreseeable medical treatment and there is an evidentiary foundation that supports the conclusion that there was a clear and unbroken chain of events leading to death,” ante, p 748, is inconsistent with both the lan*760guage of the statute and prior precedent of this Court.12
Finally, I believe it is necessary to address the majority’s apparent extension of the holding in Dedes v Asch, 446 Mich 99; 521 NW2d 488 (1994). The four-justice majority in Dedes held that, in pursuing a claim under the governmental immunity statute,13 the plaintiff need not show that the defendant’s negligence was “the” sole proximate cause of the injury (but could be “a” proximate cause), despite the statutory requirement that the negligence be “the proximate cause” of the injury. This holding, turning as it did on the definition of “the,” was clearly wrong in the definition it gave. As I have previously explained, “the” does not have the same meaning as “a.”
Despite this, the Dedes majority read “the” to mean “a.” In doing so, Dedes focused on the legislative history of the governmental immunity statute, which was silent on this issue, and concluded, entirely without any reason to do so other than that the members of the majority would not have done this if they had been in the Legislature, that the Legislature would not have made a major change in the law without com-*761meriting on it in the history, such as it is, of the legislation.14
In any case, whatever one thinks about the use of legislative committee reports, I believe this whole approach of the Dedes majority runs contrary to the organizing, and rather obvious, principle that the stat*762ute, not its history, is what is law. The history, or its lack, cannot surmount what the Legislature has actually said. After all, as Justice Scalia has trenchantly observed, “we are a Government of laws, not of committee reports.” Wisconsin Public Intervenor v Mortier, 501 US 597, 621; 111 S Ct 2476; 115 L Ed 2d 532 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring).
This much must be said for the majority in Dedes, however: unlike the majority in this case, it at least limited its holding by invoking the lack of legislative history as a reason for overruling the Legislature’s choice. Indeed, the instant majority opinion unblushingly creates the new rule that “the” may mean “a,” even where neither the language of the statute nor its legislative history supports such a reading.15 This was necessary of course because under Dedes, flawed as it is, the limiting rationale would not have allowed the majority to do what it wants to do here.
Under the Dedes rationale, this Court refused to give effect to the word “the” before proximate cause because it would have been a major change in the law of comparative negligence existing at the time the statute at issue in Dedes was enacted and no surrounding legislative history gave sufficient indication that the Legislature knew that this was what it was *763doing. This cannot be said about the predecessor of subsection 375(2) when it was enacted in 1912.
As previously discussed, the common-law rules regarding multiple proximate causation were well established in 1912. Apart from the removal of consideration of negligence attributable to the employee or a coemployee, the Legislature’s decision to limit an employer’s liability for worker’s compensation benefits in instances where other causes could be attributed to the employee’s subsequent death was in accord with the negligence doctrines that pertained throughout the tort law of that day. Therefore, under the Dedes rationale, we would have been constrained to give it the meaning that was well understood in 1912. Because this result is unpalatable to the majority, Dedes and its limiting rationale is given only passing mention.16
Second, and more important to our jurisprudence generally, the majority, having ventured onto the slippery slope of judicial legislation in Dedes, is now tumbling down it, having created the new rule that “a” and “the,” as used in a statute, are apparently always interchangeable at the will of this Court.17 Such a broad claim of power in the courts to rewrite clear *764statutes blatantly defies the, until now, well understood concept of constitutional separation of powers. As the Michigan Constitution states, “The powers of government are divided into three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. No person exercising powers of one branch shall exercise powers properly belonging to another branch except as expressly provided in this constitution.” Const 1963, art 3, § 2.18 Yet this Court has now given notice that if you can convince us that we should rewrite what the Legislature said we will do it. We have no such authority under the constitution.
This Court has in the past repeatedly noted that it is not within its province to consider or determine the wisdom, policy, or equity of a legislative enactment, absent finding some constitutional violation. Highland Park v Oakland Co Drain Comm’r, 312 Mich 407; 20 NW2d 253 (1945); Warren Twp v Engelbrecht, 251 Mich 608; 232 NW 346 (1930). It should not need repeating, but the most respected authorities in our jurisprudence say no less. United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, among the most influential figures in the development of American law, explained in Gibbons v Ogden, 22 US (9 Wheat) 1, 197; 6 L Ed 23 (1824), that our form of government rests such decisions with the Legislature, which is accountable to its constituents, not the courts, regarding decisions of policy.
The wisdom and the discretion of [the legislature, its] identity with the people, and the influence which [legisla*765tors’] constituents possess at elections, are, in this, as in many other instances, as that, for example, of declaring war, the sole restraints on which they have relied, to secure them from its abuse. They are the restraints on which the people must often rely solely, in all representative governments.
Additionally, it was noted by Michigan’s most renowned jurist, Justice Thomas A. Cooley, in his work entitled A Treatise on the Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), vol 1, pp 345-346, that
except where the Constitution has imposed limits upon the legislative power, it must be considered as practically absolute, whether it operate according to natural justice or not in any particular case. The courts are not the guardians of the rights of the people of the State, except as those rights are secured by some constitutional provision which comes within the judicial cognizance. The protection against unwise or oppressive legislation, within constitutional bounds, is by an appeal to the justice and patriotism of the representatives of the people. If this fail, the people in their sovereign capacity can correct the evil; but courts cannot assume their rights. The judiciary can only arrest the execution of a statute when it conflicts with the Constitution. It cannot run a race of opinions upon points of right, reason, and expediency with the law-making power ....
Yet, the majority departs from this standard by adopting the rule it embraces today. This Court, with no authority I understand, has given itself the power to disregard the clear expressions and decisions of the Legislature. There will be, I fear, much harm to come from this unwarranted assertion of power.
It further should be pointed out that, although the words of our constitution and the United States Constitution clearly make such judicial interference with *766the words of the Legislature impermissible, it is also the case that such a role for the judiciary was even considered, and rejected, by the framers of the federal constitution, which, of course, is the model for our Michigan Constitution. When the Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia in May 1787, the Virginia Plan was the first proposal formally submitted to the convention. This plan had at its heart a proposal that all acts of the legislature would be subject to a veto power vested in a council of revision composed of the executive and members of the judiciary. Despite the persistent efforts of James Madison and James Wilson to convince the delegates to invest the judiciary with such power to oversee the acts of the legislature, on no less than four separate occasions (June 4 and 6, July 21, and August 15, 1787), the framers specifically rejected the proposal that the judiciary be given such power.19
Now, all these years later, this Court, with no authority I can discern, has determined that it is free, if it seems advisable to do so, to disregard the expressed will of the Legislature. I disagree with the majority’s willingness to impose its own notions of proper public policy when the Legislature has indicated, through the words of the statute, its collective decision to the contrary on the issue. The majority *767trods today where our predecessors have prudently declined to go.
Brickley and Weaver, JJ., concurred with Taylor, J.

 An employee, who receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment by an employer who is subject to this act at the time of the injury, shall be paid compensation as provided in this act. [MCL 418.301(1); MSA 17.237(301)(1).]

 See Noble v Ford Motor Co, 152 Mich App 622, 626-627; 394 NW2d 50 (1986).

 If the injury received by such employee was the proximate cause of his or her death, and the deceased employee leaves dependents, as hereinbefore specified, wholly or partially dependent on him or her for support, the death benefit shall be a sum sufficient, when added to the indemnity which at the time of death has been paid or becomes payable under the provisions of this act to the deceased employee, to make the total compensation for the injury and death exclusive of medical, surgical, hospital services, medicines, and rehabilitation services, and expenses furnished as provided in sections 315 and 319, equal to the full amount which such dependents would have been entitled to receive under the provisions of section 321, in case the injury had resulted in immediate death. [MCL 418.375(2); MSA 17.237(375)(2) (emphasis added).]

 The majority finds fault with the fact that I have not cited any case for the proposition that “the proximate cause” means the sole proximate cause. Ante, p 734, n 12. There is no need to because the statute is clear, and thus we should follow it. Moreover, it’s worth noting that the majority cites no case to make the point that “a” equals “the.” This is unsurprising, because its position is akin to a criticism that asserts that if you can’t find a case that says a horse is not a cow, a horse is a cow. What this all comes down to is whether we will follow the Legislature’s direction, MCL 8.3a; MSA 2.212(1), that the words it uses are to be given their common and usual meaning.

 While it is certainly true, as the majority notes, that application of the rule of proximate cause may be difficult in any given case, especially where several causes may be considered to be a proximate cause, such an observation does not diminish the fact that the phrase “the proximate cause” had an unambiguously understood definition in 1912. Moreover, the difficulty of application of that definition does not provide a justification for this Court changing, or redefining, what the Legislature enacted.

 The majority chastises me for a failure to identify the specific extrinsic force that broke the chain of proximate causation in this case. Yet it is not necessary to do so because, by the terms of the statute, all we are to focus on is whether the work-related injury was the proximate cause of the death. As long as it was only a proximate cause, as the majority’s own analysis of the facts seems to make clear it was, there can be no recovery under the statute. A brief review of the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Hagerman makes this clear. First, where the medical personnel were aware of the medications the decedent was taking, undoubtedly the admonishment to drink unlimited amounts of water was a proximate cause of the death because it was Mr. Hagerman’s following of this advice, coupled with the effects of the diuretic, that precipitated his seizure. Additionally, where Mr. Hagerman spent a significant amount of time in the hospital after his initial seizure, and the record suggests some of the treatments caused further injury, the medical provider’s negligence or inattention should be considered a proximate cause of the death. Moreover, it seems rather plain that the decision to remove life support must be viewed as a proximate cause of Mr. Hagerman’s death. There are probably other factors that were proximate, of course, but certainly the point is clear. There was not a single proximate cause of this death. To be noted, I do not contend that these forces were superseding intervening causes, which is indeed the fundamental confusion the majority labors under in its analysis; rather, they were only additional proximate causes. Consequently, I believe that, in light of the evidence in the record, the plaintiff failed to demonstrate that the work-related injury was “the proximate cause” of Mr. Hagerman’s death as required by the statute.

 Because the statute requires that the work-related injury be “the proximate cause” of the nonimmediate death before benefits are properly granted under § 375(2), and such is not the case here, I need not, and hence do not, address whether the work-related injury was “a” proximate cause of Mr. Hagerman’s death as discussed by the Court of Appeals.

 While the majority begins its analysis by citing the definitions of “a” and “the” that appear in Black’s Law Dictionary (5th ed), it is preferable to use a lay dictionary when defining common words or phrases that have not acquired a unique meaning at law because “the common and approved usage of a nonlegal term is most likely to be found in a standard diction*756aiy and not a legal dictionary.” Horace v City of Pontiac, 456 Mich 744, 756; 575 NW2d 762 (1998).

 Although referring to a different statute than the one at issue in this case, this Court has previously recognized that the mere fact that a statute makes benefits more difficult to obtain is no reason to refuse to apply the statute as written.
“The statute, as it is written, may not afford the plaintiff what some would regard as adequate relief, or may render that relief more difficult to obtain. . . . While we may be sympathetic to the plaintiff’s predicament, we are reminded that ‘[i]t is not within the province of this Court to read [into a statute] a mandate that the legislature has not seen fit to incorporate. Our duty is to apply the law as we find it.’ ” [Piper v Pettibone Corp, 450 Mich 565, 572; 542 NW2d 269 (1995) (emphasis added), quoting Carter v Detroit Harbor Terminals, Inc, 414 Mich 498, 505; 327 NW2d 257 (1982).]

 Oleszek v Ford Motor Co, 217 Mich 318; 186 NW 719 (1922); La Veck v Parke, Davis & Co, 190 Mich 604; 157 NW 72 (1916); Schroetke v Jackson-Church Co, 193 Mich 616; 160 NW 383 (1916).

 Swanson v Oliver Iron Mining Co, 266 Mich 121; 253 NW 239 (1934); Waite v Fisher Body Corp, 225 Mich 161; 196 NW 189 (1923); Anderson v Fisher Body Corp, 239 Mich 506; 214 NW 938 (1927); Seifman v Ford Motor Co, 282 Mich 342; 276 NW 472 (1937).

 In this regard I also note that our courts have admonished that “ ‘[t]he compensation law is to be construed liberally to provide indemnity for accidents peculiarly incidental to employment, but it was not intended to be health, accident and old age insurance and spread general protection over risks common to all . . . ” Adkins v Rives Plating Corp, 338 Mich 265, 271; 61 NW2d 117 (1953); Schaefer v Williamston Community Schools, 117 Mich App 26; 323 NW2d 577 (1982). Yet in finding that the work-related injury was the proximate cause of Mr. Hagerman’s death, the majority has construed the worker’s compensation statute to effectively provide life insurance in this case.

 MCL 691.1407(2); MSA 3.996(107)(2).

 It has been said before, but it bears repeating.
Legislative histories are always suspicious. As Mr. Justice Scalia said, in reference to the United States Congress:
“My general attitude towards [legislative history] can be summed up ... by saying that I regard it as the greatest surviving legal fiction. If you can believe that a committee report (to take the most respected form of legislative history) in fact expresses what all the Members of Congress (or at least a majority of them) ‘intended’ on the obscure issues that it addresses; if you can believe that a majority of them even read the committee report; indeed, if you can believe that a majority of them was even aware of the existence of the obscure issue; then you would have had no trouble, several hundred years ago, in permitting all tort actions to be squeezed into the writ of assumpsit by the patently phony allegation that the defendant had undertaken (assumpsit) to be careful. Even beyond the unreliability of almost all legislative history (most of which is now cooked-up legislative history) as an indication of intent, it seems to me that asking what the legislators intended rather than what they enacted is quite the wrong question. [Address by Justice Antonin Scalia before the Attorney General’s Conference on Economic Liberties in Washington, D.C. (June 14, 1986).]”
Compounding the problem with the Michigan legislative histories is that, in this state, unlike the federal legislature, there is no verbatim journal of the proceedings of either house of the Legislature or of its committees. Further, unlike Congress, the Michigan House of Representatives or Senate does not vote on an acceptance of the legislative history. The creation of legislative histories are therefore free play for legislative staffers and special-interest pleaders. Their hope may well be to fill these empty vessels with potions on the chance that someday some credulous court, unaware of its dubious authenticity, may drink deeply. [Marposs Corp v City of Troy, 204 Mich App 156, 167-168, n 2; 514 NW2d 202 (1994) (Taylor, P.J., dissenting), majority opinion overruled by super majority panel in Safety Restraint Group v City of Troy, 215 Mich App 289; 544 NW2d 481 (1996).]

 Although the majority has attempted to limit its holding to instances where the words “the” or “a” precede “proximate cause,” this begs the question — “Why?” In both this case and Dedes, the analytical problem is why the Legislature should be taken as not understanding the use of these words when they precede proximate cause, but somehow understanding them when they precede other words or phrases. It is indeed the unanswerable nature of this conundrum that makes any effort by the majority to limit this unfortunate holding futile. It should not be doubted that this holding, which has no discernible principled limitations, will be used in the future by zealous advocates to encourage this Court to engage in yet other forays into statutory revision.

 In this regard I agree with the sentiments expressed by Judge Bandstra in his concurrence in this case. See Hagerman v Gencorp Automotive (On Remand), 218 Mich App 19, 25; 553 NW2d 623 (1996). In light of the fact that Dedes remains on the books, I would effectively “cabin” its holding to cases where only a showing could be made of a major deviation in the legislation from previously existing law without noting understanding, by way of history, that the Legislature knew such a deviation was being undertaken. Because that cannot be shown here, I would not apply Dedes to this case.

 Indeed, one must wonder when we will begin to see efforts at the deconstruction of other words and phrases? Certainly litigants will press the issue on us all the more so because we have established no meaningful limits on when this previously unknown power will be exercised.

 The United States Constitution similarly separates the powers of the legislature, executive, and judiciary. US Const, art I, § 1; art □, § 1, and art m, § 1.

 As noted by Georgetown University Professor Walter Bems, James Madison and others “would have given the judiciary an openly political role under the Constitution.” Bems, Taking the Constitution Seriously (Lanham, Maryland: Madison Books, 1987), p 201. In his book, from which my discussion of the Constitutional Convention is drawn, Professor Bems discusses the explicit rejection of this proposal, noted above, citing the specific proposals and votes cited in Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966).