Court Opinion

ID: 9726910
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:12:10.032639+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:19.857088
License: Public Domain

North, C. J.
(dissenting). In considering this appeal Mr. Justice Carr has concluded that plaintiff is not entitled to further compensation. I cannot agree with that result. The ground of my Brother’s holding seems to be as follows: “In his application for adjustment of claim plaintiff did not allege that the injury referred to was accidentally suffered or was accompanied by any fortuitous circumstance ;” and the further fact that notwithstanding plaintiff testified his injury did result from an accident (slipping) the commission did not expressly so find as a basis of awarding compensation. The controlling issue is this: Since the 1943 amendment to the workmen’s compensation act,* if other requisites are shown, is an employee who has sustained a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment or occupation entitled to compensation even though such injury is not accidentally caused? We have heretofore considered this issue somewhat at length. See Hagopian v. City of Highland Park, 313 Mich 608; Anderson v. General Motors Corp., 313 Mich 630; Croff v. Lakey Foundry & Machine Co., 320 Mich 581. In the Hagopian Case denial of compensation was ultimately because the record disclosed no causal connection between Hagopian’s employment and his disability, which was found to be due to a noneompensable heart ailment with which he had been afflicted both prior to and subsequent to the date of his disability. In the Anderson Case the award of compensation was-*667.affirmed, 2 of the 8 justices dissenting; and in the Croff Case, under facts quite identical with those in the instant case, an award of compensation was affirmed by an equally divided court. This phase of the law as reviewed in the cited cases, while still relied upon herein, need not be here repeated in | detail; but it seems fitting to again note the following:
The real reason urged in support of the conclusion that nonaccidental injuries are not compensable, is that the title to the workmen’s compensation act ■ (as we repeatedly held prior to the 1937 amendment*) was not broad enough to permit awards of compensation under part 2 of the act for nonaccidental injury. This, we think, ignores the combined effect of the 1937 amendment and the 1943 amendment.
Prior to 1937 the act provided compensation only in event of one cause of a personal injury or death of an employee — i.e., an accidental injury.' This limitation was expressed in the title which prior to the 1937 amendment (so far as here material) read:
“An act * * * providing compensation for the accidental injury to or death of employees.”
But the title as amended in 1937 was and is not confined to a single ground — i.e., accidental injury, for awarding compensation. Instead by the 1937 amended title the possible scope of the act was broadened so that it included 3 grounds or circumstances under which an injured employee (or his dependents in event of his death) might receive an award of compensation. This 1937 amended title (so far as material here) provides for “compensation for the disability or death resulting from *668[1]* occupational injuries [2]* or disease [3]# or accidental injury to or death of employees.”
While it is a fair inference that at the time the primary purpose of the 1937 amendment was to make the act ample to include occupational diseases, as specified, nonetheless it was also sufficient to include “occupational injuries” as well as accidental injuries. The reason that thereafter, and prior to the 1943 amendment, we repeatedly held a nonaccidental injury was not compensable was that the act itself in part 2 still provided for compensation only in event that the injury was accidentally sustained. Evidently to overcome this restriction the legislature in 1943 materially amended part 2 of the act. As noted by Mr. Justice Bushnell in the Hagopian Case, supra, “the words ‘accident’ and ‘accidental’ were used 54 times in the act before its amendment (in 1943) and now both words are used only 5 times and Justice Bushnell further comments:
“It is obvious to even the ordinary lay reader that the scope of the title of the act in question is sufficient to embrace the provisions of the 1943 amendment, and that this amendment in connection with the title does not offend or contravene the mandate of article 5, § 21, of the 1908 Constitution of this State.”
If subsequent amendments to the body of an act would be within the scope of the title, if they had been enacted at the same time the title was amended, they should still be considered as within the amended title. In Common Council of Detroit v. Schmid, 128 Mich 379, 388 (92 Am St Rep 468), we said:
“It seems, therefore, that the law is fully settled in this State that whatever might have been incorporated into the original act under the title of such *669original act may be added by way of amendment under tbe most general title.”
Tbe last above quotation is approvingly embodied in Surtman v. Secretary of State, 309 Mich 270, 277. Thus, since the 1937 amendment to tbe workmen’s compensation act we bave an act entitled sufficiently broad to cover “occupational injuries” sustained by employees, provided such injuries arise out of and in tbe course of the employment — i.e., that there be a causal relation. And in tbe body of tbe act, as amended in 1943, numerous changes were made by substituting “personal injury” for “accidental injury.” Scarcely any reason for such changes can be given except that tbe legislature intended thereby to delete from tbe act tbe limitation that an injury sustained by an employee would not be compensable except it was caused accidentally or by some fortuitous circumstance.
In view of tbe foregoing we think it must be held that since tbe 1943 amendment an occupational injury suffered by an employee is not noncompensable merely because it is nonaccidental. It is not only interesting, but quite persuasive, that since tbe 1937 amendment no decision of this Court denying compensation has been bottomed solely on a bolding that nonaccidental injuries are not included within tbe title to tbe act; although some denials bave been adjudicated since the 1937 amendment ánd prior to tbe 1943 amendment on tbe ground that prior to its amendment in 1943 noncompensable injuries were not covered by part 2 of tbe act. But we bold that tbe combined effect of tbe 1937 amendment and tbe 1943 amendment renders tbe act, both as to title and subject matter covered by tbe 1943 amendment to part 2 of tbe act, sufficient to provide for an award of compensation for nonaccidental (occupational) injuries arising out of and in tbe course of tbe em*670ployment. In the instant case, as in the Anderson Case, supra, the personal injury arose out of and in the course of plaintiff’s employment and the award should he affirmed.
The following observations concerning decisions cited in my Brother’s opinion seem pertinent. In Kasarewski v. Hupp Motor Car Corp., 315 Mich 225, the denial of compensation was solely on the ground that plaintiff’s aggravation of hernia was not compensable because his hernia was not of recent origin and therefore was noncompensable under the express provisions of the statute. And in Mooney v. Copper Range Railroad Co., 318 Mich 120, the award of compensation was affirmed by a unanimous decision since it was established that the employee’s injury resulted from an accidental or fortuitous happening. Such has always been our holdings. Neither of the foregoing cases is particularly helpful to decision in the instant case.
The award of compensation should be affirmed, with costs to appellee.
Dethmers, and Bushnell, JJ., concurred with North, C. J.

 PA 1943, No 245.

 PA 1937, No 61.

 Bracketed matter supplied.