Court Opinion

ID: 9724207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:48:29.55793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:57.421555
License: Public Domain

Bronson, P. J.
(dissenting). The majority opinion perpetuates the artificial distinction drawn by the Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board. Believing *179that this opinion establishes dangerous precedent, I am compelled to. dissent.
While the majority opinion correctly cites its duty to affirm the appeal board’s findings of fact, in the absence of fraud, this approach obscures the critical problem raised by the instant appeal. Since both parties agree that plaintiff was disabled, the controversy becomes focused upon the issue of whether plaintiff’s psychoneurotic condition was caused by the stresses and strains to which he was exposed during his employment or plaintiff’s own internal mental deterioration as enhanced by the aging process. Although both plaintiff and defendant offered expert witnesses to answer this question of whether plaintiff’s mental disabilities were "work related”, the hearing referee found plaintiff’s evidence more convincing.
Upon review by the appeal board, the referee’s findings were reversed upon the following language which the majority cites with approval:
"This is indeed a different case than Carter. In that matter, plaintiff was injured by an external force — his work environment. In this case, plaintiff MacKenzie was disabled by something from within — that internal cause of his disability being a personality disorder dating back to his youth. We know of no case law that would permit compensation for plaintiff’s perception of a work environment as injurious, when in fact that perception does not square with fact and the environment is shown not to be injurious.”
The significance of this language is that it attempts to distinguish the legal principle controlling mental disabilities established in Carter v General Motors Corporation, 361 Mich 577; 106 NW2d 105 (1960), upon the basis that the actual injurious nature of the work environment rather than plaintiff’s perception of its injurious nature is *180controlling. Based upon the cited language the majority sanctions the distinction drawn by the appeal board between the plaintiff’s subjective perception of the stresses and strains created by the working environment and an objective determination of whether such stresses or strains exist.
It is inconceivable that the inquiry should be shifted by such analytical slight of hand from the disabled employee’s ability to withstand the alleged injurious working conditions to an abstract evaluation of the injurious nature of the work environment. Plaintiff’s perception of his work environment is indispensable to an attempt to establish a causal relationship between his employment and disability. The Court in Carter recognized this , interrelationship by quoting the physician’s testimony describing Carter’s distorted view of his job in detail. The inquiry in Carter was not whether the job created pressures or difficulties for any other employee, but whether they created an impossible situation for Carter given his pre-existing mental condition or infirmity. The employee’s ability to cope with his job is indispensable to the issue of causation and should not be lost in analytical diversions.
The artificial and unnecessary distinction drawn by the board and perpetuated by the majority results in a distortion of guiding precedent and circumvention of the underlying purposes of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. I disavow this misapplication of controlling legal principles under the guise of the board’s shielded factual determination. Since the board has applied a fallacious legal standard by failing to consider plaintiff’s perception of his work environment, I would reverse and remand the cause to the board for reconsideration. Zaremba v Chrysler Corp, 377 Mich 226; 139 NW2d 745 (1966).