Court Opinion

ID: 9849064
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:34:11.420565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:59.652451
License: Public Domain

Ryan, J.
I concur with Justice Riley’s dissenting opinion in all but one respect.
The dissenting opinion would hold that "expert testimony must be produced by the claimant to establish the mental disability,” (ante, p 623) and that "[t]he claimant would be required to produce expert testimony to establish that the precipitating work-related physical trauma, event or events were stressful to the claimant and that there was a substantial causal nexus, the psycho-dynamics of which could be identified and elucidated by expert testimony to a reasonable degree of psychiatric certainty, between the precipitating work-related physical injury, event or events, and the mental disability.” (Ante, pp 624-625.) (Emphasis added.)
While expert testimony may in fact be necessary, in the large majority of cases, to establish a compensable mental disability, I cannot agree with the adoption of a per se rule automatically requiring such testimony. First, there is nothing in the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act supporting such a requirement. Chapter 8 of the act, particularly § 853, MCL 418.853; MSA 17.237(853), regulates process and procedure before the hearing referee and the wcab. None of these provisions can be interpreted as requiring the introduction of expert testimony in order to prove a psychiatric disability claim.
Second, while this Court has held that expert *631testimony, is generally required to establish a cause of action for medical malpractice, it has also recognized an exception in "cases where the lack of professional care is so manifest that it would be within the common knowledge and experience of the ordinary layman that the conduct was careless and not conformable to the standards of professional practice and care employed in the community.” Lince v Monson, 363 Mich 135, 140-141; 108 NW2d 845 (1961). Similarly, there is the possibility that a mental disability may be so clearly manifest that it could be established through the use of lay testimony, such as that of family members. Lay testimony may be competent evidence of a mental condition. See, e.g., Beaubien v Cicotte, 12 Mich 459 (1864); People v Murphy, 416 Mich 453, 465; 331 NW2d 152 (1982); see also 31 Am Jur 2d, Expert and Opinion Evidence, § 85; Anno: Requisite foundation or predicate to permit nonexpert witness to give opinion, in a civil action, as to sanity, mental competency, or mental condition, 40 ALR2d 15.
For these reasons, I would not adopt Justice Riley’s per se rule requiring expert testimony in mental disability cases.
Brickley, J., concurred with Ryan, J.