Court Opinion

ID: 9669950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:11:31.735056+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:01.328642
License: Public Domain

M. S. Coleman, J.
(to affirm). As a result of her injury, the plaintiff employee did not work for a period of ten calendar days. The employer voluntarily paid compensation for two days. The employee claims that she is entitled to compensation for the first week of disability.
The applicable statute was MCLA 412.3; MSA 17.153:
"No compensation shall be paid under this act for any injury which does not incapacitate the employee for a period of at least 1 week from earning full wages, but if incapacity extends beyond the period of 1 week, compensation shall begin on the eighth day after the injury. If such incapacity continues for 2 weeks or longer or if death results from the injury, compensation shall be computed from the date of the injury.”
This section is now found at MCLA 418.311; MSA 17.237(311).

HISTORY

When enacted in 1912, the statute included a similar provision except the periods were two and eight weeks and payment began on the fifteenth day. A bulletin issued that same year by the Industrial Accident Board reads:
*700"The distinguishing feature of the compensation law is that it provides benefits for every injury regardless of fault or negligence. The Michigan law pays the injured employes, beginning the third week of the disability, 50 per cent of his earnings during such disability. The employe therefore, in reality bears part of the cost of such compensation, because under the common law, if any recovery was had, his damages were assessed on the basis of 100% of his earnings. He also contributes in the sense that he gets no compensation for the first two weeks of his disability unless incapacity should extend eight weeks, in which event payment reverts to first day of injury.”
A Bulletin No. 3 issued by the Board in 1913 contained the following fact situation and ruling:
"The employe was totally incapacitated for fourteen days and returned to work on the fifteenth day at a reduction of wages. He has received 50% of his loss in salary for six weeks and the question that arises is, should he receive compensation for the first two weeks, and if so, how much?
"It is the opinion of the Industrial Accident Board that inasmuch as the incapacity resulting from the accident (part being total and rest partial disability) continued for more than eight weeks, as it did under your statement, the employe would be entitled to compensation for the first two weeks under Section 3 of Part II of the Act. Inasmuch as the disability for the first two weeks was total, it is the opinion of the Board that for said first two weeks he should receive compensation for total disability.”
The plain inference is that if the incapacity resulting from the injury did not continue for more than eight weeks, recovery for the first two weeks would not have been allowed.
A pamphlet issued in 1917 said that if an employee "is disabled for eight (8) weeks, he then gets the first two weeks compensation”.
*701The act was amended in 1919 to reduce the waiting period to one week and the recovery period to six weeks. The above interpretations were not altered. (See rules issued August 14, 1919 and June 1, 1923.) The recovery period was reduced to four weeks in 1943 and the present two weeks in 1965.

DISCUSSION

I
The- employee maintains the recovery requirements are met if the injury incapacitates her from earning full wages at any time during the second week. Because a week is seven days, the eighth day after the injury would be the first day of the second week. This interpretation would afford1 the employee the simultaneous rights to begin receiving compensation and to recover compensation for the first seven days.
Why then did not the Legislature say that if incapacity extends to the eighth day after injury, compensation should be computed from the date of injury? Because this is not what was intended. The facts are simple. A week is not completed until seven days have passed. The eighth day after injury is a period of one week and one day. The second week after injury is not completed until fourteen days have passed.
Plaintiff argues that "incapacity” means inability to earn full wages at some point during these statutory periods.
Under the interpretation of the statute preferred by Justice Swainson, an employee could take off three or four extra and unnecessary days for a minor injury so that he could return to work on the eighth and receive compensation for the entire *702week. The two week period was intended to minimize such human temptations.1 Further, the act was designed to provide compensation "for the disability or death resulting from occupational injuries or disease or accidental injury to or death of employees”. The employee is being compensated for losses resulting from the injury.
If the incapacity (whether partial or total) resulting from the injury extends for more than one week, the employee begins to receive compensation on the eighth day. If the incapacity (whether partial or total) resulting from the injury "continues for 2 weeks or longer”, then the employee recaptures compensation for the first week.

CONCLUSION

This is a case which "lawyers love and laymen despair”. The employee has sought compensation under the provisions of MCLA 412.9(a); MSA 17.159(a) for losses due to a total incapacity for work. The facts show that the employee’s injury totally incapacitated her for a period of ten calendar days, at the end of which time she returned to work. Her incapacity did not continue "for 2 weeks or longer”. Her incapacity extended one week and three days and, therefore, she should not recover for the first week.
This result is the one which most logically follows from the statutory language. The first sentence of MCLA 412.3 establishes a one week waiting period following the injury.2 The employee does *703not become eligible to receive compensation until "the eighth day after the injury”. If the incapacity (partial or total) resulting from the injury "continues for 2 weeks or longer”, the second sentence permits recovery of compensation for the first week. A week being seven days, the incapacity resulting from the injury must extend for fourteen days or longer in order for the employee to recover compensation for the first week.
From its inception and continuing over 60 years, the legal interpretation of the statutory periods has been based upon the well-known fact that a week is composed of seven days. In short, this method of calculation has been historically well settled and all industry and insurers geared to it.
II
Throughout these proceedings the parties have advanced alternative methods of computing compensation. We believe that neither method accords with statutory objectives.
MCLA 412.11; MSA 17.161 says, in part, that the employee’s weekly loss in wages
"shall consist of such percentage of the average weekly earnings of the injured employee computed according to the provisions of this section as shall fairly represent the proportionate extent of the impairment of his earning capacity in the employment in which he was working at the time of the injury, the same to be fixed as of the time of the injury, but to be determined in view of the nature and extent of the injury. The compensation payable, when added to his wage earning capacity after the injury in the same or another employment, shall *704not exceed his average weekly earnings at the time of such injury.”
The statutory objective is to compensate the employee in a manner which fairly reflects the extent of "the impairment of his earning capacity”.
Plaintiff contends that she is entitled to the statutory maximum if she misses but one day of work provided that compensation and wages earned do not exceed her average weekly earnings. This does not provide proportionate compensation. Defendant would divide the statutory maximum into six parts and award one part for each day of work missed. However, not all employees are on a six day work week. To adopt this method would result in possible under compensation for employees on a four or five day week.
We believe the following equation expresses the statutory objective:
Wages Lost _ Compensation to be Paid
Average weekly wage Statutory maximum
In the instant case, using the agreed figures, the equation would appear:
$38.14 _ Compensation to be Paid
$111.36 $64.00
The compensation to be paid would be $21.92.
The equation insures that the employee receives compensation proportionate to his or her lost wages. The employee may not be compensated in excess of the statutory maximum nor may the compensation and post injury wage earning capacity exceed the average weekly earnings at the time of the injury.
*705As herein modified, the opinion of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
Levin, J., concurred with M. S. Coleman, J.
T. G. Kavanagh, J., concurred in the result of the opinion by M. S. Coleman, J.
J. W. Fitzgerald, J., did not sit in this case.

 See 58 Am Jur, Workmen’s Compensation, § 319 saying the purpose of such waiting periods "is to prevent malingering.”

 See Siegel, "Enactment of the Workmen’s Compensation Law in Michigan,” Conference * * * 50th Anniversary of Workmen’s Compensation in Michigan (1962); 3 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation, appendix B, table 12; 58 Am Jur, Workmen’s Compensation § 319; 81 ALR 1261; 11 Schneider, Workmen’s Compensation § 2320. The latter *703author says: "Virtually all of the acts have a waiting period of from 3 to 15 days, during which time no compensation is payable unless the disability from injury continues for a stated minimum number of days or weeks.”