Court Opinion

ID: 9699917
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:57:04.438064+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:00.168730
License: Public Domain

Edwards, J.
(concurring). This appeal suggests to us that the Michigan workmen’s compensation act provides for the concurrent payment of 2 workmen’s compensation total disability awards to the same person, covering the same weeks of disability, provided that it be shown that he is suffering from 2 separate disabilities, either of which would occasion total disability.
The majority of the workmen’s compensation appeal board held to the contrary. The majority opinion said:
“The question is whether or not the plaintiff’s disability from his 1949 injury can be compensated during the concurrent period of time for which he has been compensated for total disability due to his 1953 injury. "Plaintiff’s average weekly wage at the time of his 1949 injury was $60.80. His' maximum compensation rate was $21 a week. His average weekly wage at the timé of second injury is reported as $76.40 and his compensation rate has been $34 a week. * * * In this case the plaintiff’s earnings at the time of the second injury were substantially greater than his earnings at the time of his first injury. His second earnings during the time of their continuance completely substituted for his right to compensation for his first injury. Insofar as wage-earning capacity is concerned be did not have 2 wage-earning capacities to lose as his second loss completely enveloped the first.
“The plaintiff has suffered 2 injuries. He is totally disabled by reason of each injury independent of the other. However he has not suffered, compensation wise, 2 losses of wage-earning capacity during the period of time herein involved. The award of Referee Weber is, therefore, affirmed.
“The plaintiff is, of course, entitled to further medical care for his 1949 injury to the extent that it is medically advisable that he receive it.”
*687This reasoning seems wholly in accordance with the language, limitations and intent of the workmen’s compensation act. The section dealing with total disability* provides in its first sentence for a dollar *688ceiling on tbe weekly compensation to be paid “while ■the incapacity for work resulting from the injury is total.” It also expresses the compensation to be paid in terms of percentage of the employee’s weekly wage, with added increments for each dependent, and with the total to be reduced when a dependent reached 21. The section also provides for supplementation of the weekly compensation by the second injury fund when the sum due from the particular employer is deemed too low. The benefits under the act are thus related to the employee’s disability, to his previous earnings and to the needs of his family, rather than constituting a specific sum of the nature of tort damages. This concept is illustrated further in CLS 1956, § 412.10 (Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 17.160), dealing with partial incapacity:
“The amounts specified in this cause are all subject to the same limitations as to maximum and minimum as above stated. In case of the loss of 1 member' while compensation is being paid for the loss of another member, compensation shall be paid for the loss of the second member for the period herein provided, payments to begin at the conclusion of the payments for the first member.”
*689It is also illustrated in CL 1948, § 412.11 (Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 17.161), which provides:
“The compensation payable, when added to his wage earning capacity after the injury in the same or .another employment, shall not exceed his average weekly earnings at the time of such injury.”
It is still further illustrated by CL 1948, § 412.12 (Stat Ann 1960 Rev § 17.162), which provides that death terminates all liability from pre-existing injuries as to the individual’s estate, and conditions further compensation upon the existence of dependents :
“The death of the injured employee prior to the expiration of the period within which he would receive such weekly payments shall be deemed to end such disability, and all liability for the remainder of such payments which he would have received in case he had lived shall be terminated, but the employer shall thereupon be liable for the following death benefits in lieu of any further disability indemnity:”
While I recognize that none of these sections specifically interdicts the ingenious argument which appellant’s counsel has propounded to us, they do serve to illustrate that the interpretation he urges would be fundamentally inconsistent with the nature of the act.
Larson, in dealing with the underlying concept of workmen’s compensation, uses these words in contrasting it to tort damages:
“In compensation, unlike tort, the only injuries compensated for are those which produce disability and thereby presumably affect earning power.
“For this reason, some classes of injuries which result in verdicts of thousands of dollars at common law produce no award whatever under a compensation statute. For example, while common-law verdicts of great size are common for facial disfigure*690ment, it is usually held that, in the absence of an express provision making disfigurement compensable, no allowance can be made for it. More than half of the States now have such express provisions, but, significantly, the basis in most instances is still the argument that a repellent appearance may diminish the claimant’s chances of obtaining and holding employment. Similarly, impairment or destruction of sexual potency is not in itself a basis for an award, and, presumably the same result would apply to such an injury as destruction of childbearing capacity in a woman.
“The limitation of compensation to ‘disability’ also runs consistently through all questions of elements of damage. To take a familiar example: there is no place in compensation law for damages on account of pain and suffering, however dreadful they may be. So also in death benefit cases, compensation law refuses to recognize such items as loss of consortium or conscious suffering of the deceased in the interval preceding death.
“A compensation system, unlike a tort recovery, does not pretend to restore to the claimant what he has lost; it gives him a sum which, added to his remaining earning ability, if any, will presumably enable him to exist without being a burden to others.” 1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, §§ 2.40, 2.50.
I agree with Mr. Justice Carr that the language of the workmen’s compensation statute cannot, consistent with the legislative intent demonstrated in the scheme of the act, be interpreted as affording 2 awards for total disability for the same period of time.

 “See. 9 (a) While the incapacity for work resulting from the injury is total, the employer shall pay, or eause to be paid as hereinafter provided, to the injured employee, a weekly compensation of 66-2/3% of his average weekly wages, but not more than $33 if such injured employee has no dependents; $36 per week if 1 dependent; $40 if 2 dependents; $45 if 3 dependents; $51 if 4 dependents and $57 if 5 or more dependents. Weekly payments shall in no event be less than $18 if there are no dependents; $20 if 1 dependent; $22 if 2 dependents; $24 if 3 dependents; $26 if 4 dependents; and $28 if 5 or more dependents, and in no ease shall the period covered by sueh compensation be greater than 500 weeks from the date of injury, nor shall the total compensation exceed an amount equal to 500 times the total weekly amount payable under this section 9, except for permanent and total disability as defined in sections 8a and 10, when the compensation shall be paid for the duration of sueh permanent and total disability: Provided, That the conclusive presumption of total and permanent disability shall not extend beyond 800 weeks from the date of injury, and thereafter the question of permanent and total disability shall be determined in accordance with the faet, as the faet may be at that time. Any permanently and totally disabled person as defined in sections 8a and 10 who, on or after June 25, 1955, is entitled to receive payments of workmen’s compensation under this act in amounts per week of less than is presently provided in the workmen’s compensation schedule of benefits for permanent and total disability and for a lesser number of weeks than the duration of such permanent and total disability shall after the effective date of this amendatory act receive weekly, without application, from the second injury fund, an amount equal to the difference between what he is now receiving per week and the amount per week now provided for permanent and total disability with appropriate application of the provisions of paragraphs (b), (c), (d) and (e) of this section since the date of injury. Payments from this second injury fund shall continue after the period for which any sueh person is otherwise entitled to compensation under this aet for the duration of sueh permanent and total disability according to the full rate provided in the schedule of benefits.
“(b) Por the purposes of this section and of section 10, dependency shall be determined as follows:
“The following persons shall be conclusively presumed to be dependent for support upon an injured employee:
“1. The wife of an injured employee living with sueh employee as such wife at the time of the injury.
“2. A child under the age of 16 years, or over said age, if physically or mentally incapacitated from earning, living with his parent at the time of the injury of sueh parent.
“(c) In all other cases questions of dependency shall be determined in accordance with the faet, as the fact may be at the time of the injury. No person shall be considered a dependent unless he or she is a member of the family of the injured employee, or *688unless such person bears to such injured employee the relation of husband or wife, or lineal descendant, or ancestor or brother or sister. Except as to those conclusively presumed to be dependents, no person shall be deemed a dependent who receives less than 1/2 of his support from an injured employee.
“(d) Weekly payments to any injured employee shall be reduced by the additional amount provided for any dependent child or husband or wife or other dependent when such child either readies the age of 21 years or after becoming 16 ceases for a period of 6 months to receive more than 1/2 of his support from such injured employee, ,if at such time he or she is neither physically nor mentally incapacitated from earning, or when such husband or wife shall be divorced by final decree from his or her injured spouse, or when such child, husband or wife, or other dependent shall be deceased.
“(e) No increase in payments shall be made for increased numbers of dependents not so dependent at the time of the injury of an employee.” CLS 1956, § 412.9 .(Stat Ann 1960 Bev §17.159).