Court Opinion

ID: 9687006
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:13:40.680559+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:23.694153
License: Public Domain

*622Coleman, J.
(dissenting). Harriett R. Martin has been receiving and will continue to receive disability benefits from Ford Motor Company for a back problem "for the duration of her disability”.1
The parties ask us to decide whether there were any facts to support the Workmen’s Compensation Appeal Board finding that she was not entitled to total and permanent disability benefits for the loss of industrial use of her legs and left arm. The Court of Appeals affirmed WCAB.
We affirm.
I
Plaintiff’s medical history is long and complicated. A history of her back problems is:2
1. In 1935, plaintiff’s back was injured in a toboggan accident. She testified that from then on she had trouble with her back "ever so often” which occasionally "was bad enough to see a doctor”, but sometimes she "just went to bed”.
2. In 1951, a chiropractic treatment resulted in a "sacrolumbar sprain” so she "went to a bone doctor then and it took three months to clear that up”.
3. In 1956, plaintiff was hired by Ford.
4. In 1957 or 1958, she was in an automobile accident. A back examination disclosed an "old rupture of a disc”.
5. In March, 1964, plaintiff said, she "gagged on the toothpaste” while brushing her teeth at home and "felt a very severe pain” in her back. Six days later she entered the hospital for removal of a herniated disc. She returned to work on June 19, 1964.
*6236. Two months later, on August 5, 1964, plaintiff was in another automobile accident causing severe back pain — "the same kind of pain I had experienced when the disc herniated”, she said. A doctor said she had "suffered a spinal injury”. She returned to work on October 5, 1964.
7. On the same day, while doing desk work, she said her back started to hurt. She continued to work despite her discomfort until March, 1965. Plaintiff was admitted to a hospital for three weeks, was placed in a body cast and sent home. She wore the cast for three weeks.
8. On April 19, 1965, another back operation (laminectomy) was performed. She returned to work July 1, 1965.
9. In July, 1965, she was asked to do some filing at work and complained of muscle spasms and pain. She arranged for someone else to do the filing. The pain ceased.
10. In October, 1965, plaintiff again was asked to do some filing. She said the spasms and pain recurred. Again, she was excused from filing but the physical problem was said to remain. She was sent to a hospital for three-and-one-half weeks of therapy. On April 22, 1966, the doctor found her improved.
11. On April 29, 1966, plaintiff was planting some rose bushes at home when she suffered another seizure of pain resulting in tenderness "in the low lumbar extensors in the middle left gluteus maximus”. She returned to work on May 9, 1966.
12. On May 31, 1966, plaintiff’s work at Ford was terminated because her work had been computerized.
13. In June, 1966, plaintiff underwent a spinal fusion.
*62414. On September 1, 1966, plaintiff suffered another painful incident while shopping.
15. On October 12, 1966, a chordotomy was performed.
16. On November 28 and December 12, 1966 additional chordotomies were performed. Mrs. Martin testified before the referee that a "burning and weakness” of her upper left extremity and a "burning” in her left leg followed the chordotomies.
17. In September, 1967, a myelogram was performed as well as two stellate blocks. She had spinal cortisone injections in three separate places.
On January 28, 4971, the referee found that plaintiff’s work at Ford had aggravated a pre-existing back condition. She therefore was entitled to disability benefits for the duration of her back disability. WCAB affirmed. However, the referee also attributed to Ford total and permanent loss of industrial use of her legs and left arm.3 WCAB reversed this finding. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
II
WCAB member Yemen’s prevailing opinion said that "the referee erred in his finding of industrial loss of use of both legs and one arm”.4 He found that the "overwhelming weight of medical proofs points to back disability and any reference to industrial loss of lower or upper extremities is so scarce that it is utterly inadequate to support a firiding of total and permanent disability”. Plaintiff "did not meet her burden of proof to establish the industrial loss of use of any legs or arms”.
*625Three Michigan Supreme Court cases establish a test for determining if a worker is entitled to benefits for permanent loss of the industrial use of his legs:
(1) In Paulson v Muskegon Heights Tile Co, 371 Mich 312; 123 NW2d 715 (1963), the worker "was seriously injured in an automobile accident sustained in the course of his employment”. His injuries included a punctured bladder and fractured pelvis which resulted in a condition where the use of his legs caused pain.
The worker sought compensation for an industrial use loss. The company said "there can be no loss of industrial use * * * where there is no direct injury to the legs”. The Court construed the statute "to mean that permanent and total loss of industrial use, insofar as the facts of this case are concerned, is that leg-connected disabling pain associated primarily with the use of the legs, which is so severe as to make use of the legs in industry practically impossible”.
(2) In Miller v Sullivan Milk Products, Inc, 385 Mich 659; 189 NW2d 304 (1971), the plaintiff "suffered permanent injury to his left leg when he slipped on some ice while delivering milk”. The left leg was industrially useless; it was "undisputed that there is nothing wrong with plaintiff’s right leg”. He claimed "the economic reality of his incapacitation should control determination of total loss of industrial use of both legs”.
The Court did not accept this. It felt the interpretation "would do violence to the statutory intent” by holding that "[w]hen the limb cannot be used industrially simply because of other disabling infirmities * * * the industrial loss of use of such limb has occurred”. The Court said "[t]he basic issue in connection with claims of total and permanent disability is one of fact”. It affirmed the *626WCAB finding that plaintiff "may be totally disabled, but his loss of industrial use is completely confined to one leg, not both”.
(3) In Burke v Ontonagon County Road Commission, 391 Mich 103; 214 NW2d 797 (1974), the plaintiff "while working * * * slipped and fell into a hole, injuring his left knee”. After surgery and years of treatment, he . was still "unable to walk without experiencing pain, and without the aid of crutches”. Plaintiff’s right leg went "on the bum” because "the injury to his left leg caused faulty weightbearing”. The WCAB said plaintiff did not prove an industrial use loss. We reversed.
The Court said "Paulson and Lockwood5 examine whether loss of industrial use of both legs can have its source in physical injuries which are not leg-related”. Miller instructed "that loss of industrial use must result from an employment-related injury”, a lesson that Paulson and Lockwood took for granted. For Mrs. Martin’s case, Burke says there can be total and permanent loss of industrial use if using her legs "triggers an employment-related injury * * * in any part of the body * * * that causes pain or other condition that prevents use of both legs in industry”. (Emphasis added.)
Other cases help to color in the outline.
The employee in Koschay v Barnett Pontiac, Inc, 386 Mich 223; 191 NW2d 334 (1971), sought compensation for a heart attack. WCAB denied the claim, finding "that whatever disability he may still have is not causally connected with his employment”. The Court reviewed the case because plaintiff’s counsel insisted (as Mrs. Martin’s counsel insists) "that no testimony supported the factual findings of the board”.
*627The Court said the question of compensability "became by the proofs a pure question of fact’’. The board "was entitled to conclude either way; that the claimant’s disability was compensable, that is, work-connected, or that it was not”. The Court felt it was "plain * * * that the board reached understandable conclusion that there was no proof persuasive enough to sustain plaintiffs burden of making a prima facie case of right to an award”.
In DeGeer v DeGeer Farm Equipment Co, 391 Mich 96; 214 NW2d 794 (1974), the employee had a work-related back injury which required four operations. He could not sit, stand or walk for any length of time without pain. The referee found that plaintiff could not "use his legs long enough or consistently enough to qualify for type of employment which could reasonably be anticipated”. The WCAB reversed because "the proofs presented will not support a finding that plaintiff has in fact suffered the industrial loss of use” of his legs as a result of the work-related injury. We remanded for consideration in light of Burke.
The worker in Triplett v Chrysler Corp, 394 Mich 518; 232 NW2d 168 (1975), had "an occupational respiratory condition which prevents [the] employee from walking any appreciable distance”. He was awarded benefits for the loss of industrial use of his legs. The Court reversed saying Burke should not be read "to include those cases in which the loss of industrial use of the legs is caused by a generally debilitating disease which, affects bodily functions in much the same way and causes a general decline in those bodily functions”.
Ill
What does this mean for Mrs. Martin? To recover for the loss of industrial use of her legs and arm, she must establish a relationship between *628that loss and her employment injury. Her work at Ford aggravated a pre-existing back injury for which she already is being compensated by defendant. However, the back was injured again after her employment ended. She underwent a series of operations after her employment ended. Prior to the last day of work and after the "strain” said to have been caused by filing (the one "aggravating” trauma attributed to Ford among the eight injuries to the back), plaintiff suffered a nonwork-related injury while planting rose bushes. Her burden was to show that the work-related aggravation resulted in the loss of industrial use of her legs or a leg and an arm.
Like the plaintiff in Koschay, Mrs. Martin did not carry the burden. A majority of the WCAB felt "she does not qualify for a designation of a totally and permanently disabled person either within the meaning of the act or the tests enumerated * * * in Burke”. She "just has not met her burden”. We agree.
We wish the WCAB majority opinion were more descriptive. However, it is difficult to demonstrate a negative, to show what proof was missing. It is clear that the majority was unconvinced by plaintiffs proofs which failed to make the required link between the work-related aggravation and the claimed loss of industrial use.
The "basic issue in connection with claims of total and permanent disability is one of fact”. The WCAB findings of fact are conclusive if there is no fraud. We accept them and affirm.
Fitzgerald and Ryan, JJ., concurred with Coleman, J.

 Opinion of WCAB.

 There also was history of breast surgery and pain between the shoulders caused by bilateral bronchitis.

 MCLA 418.361; MSA 17.237(361).
Total and permanent disability means "(g) Permanent and total loss of industrial use of both legs or both hands or both arms or 1 leg and 1 arm”.

 Member Krapohl signed the opinion and two others concurred in the result. Two members dissented and one concurred in the dissent.

 Lockwood v Continental Motors Corp, 27 Mich App 597; 183 NW2d 807 (1970).