Court Opinion

ID: 9728777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:16:16.495754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:52.022523
License: Public Domain

M. J. Kelly, J.
(dissenting). I concur in the holding of the majority that a workmen’s compensation insurer is not entitled to reimbursement for economic loss benefits paid to the injured employee out of that employee’s recovery of noneconomic losses from the third-party tortfeasor. However I’m not prepared to hold that the intervention and reimbursement provisions of MCL 418.827(1) and (5); MSA 17.237(827)(1) and (5) are completely inapplicable to the present case. This conclusion is dictated by the procedural posture of this case which demonstrates an instance where intervention and reimbursement would be entirely appropriate.
*573Although seeking only noneconomic damages in this suit, plaintiff joined the driver of the automobile, defendant Gensterblum, with The Brewery, Inc., d/b/a The Silver Dollar Saloon as a codefendant, alleging liability based upon the dramshop act. MCL 436.22; MSA 18.993. This aspect of the present suit is an ordinary tort action and there is no question but that the dramshop act, which authorizes recovery of actual and exemplary damages, would permit the plaintiff to recover both economic and noneconomic losses from the co-defendant Brewery. Thus, if the majority’s holding is applicable to plaintiff’s recovery from both defendants, the possibility of double recovery, now obviated by MCL 500.3135; MSA 24.13135 as regards the automobile driver, is resurrected. I do not think that the majority intended this result.
In my opinion, the limitation which the majority has placed upon the intervention and reimbursement provisions of the workmen’s compensation act should be read as applying only where the no-fault statute limits the injured employee’s recovery to noneconomic losses. In the case of liability based upon the dramshop act, where recovery of economic losses is possible, these provisions, as interpreted in Pelkey and Wrobel, should control and permit both intervention and reimbursement by the insurance carrier.
I would therefore grant the Michigan State Accident Fund’s motion to intervene pending the Supreme Court’s review of the holding in Wrobel. The trial court could enter a protective order prohibiting the Michigan State Accident Fund’s attorneys from interfering with the control and progress of the case by plaintiff’s attorney and further prohibiting disclosure of the fact of workmen’s compensation insurance from the jury.