Court Opinion

ID: 9664121
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:03:38.721099+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:02.278090
License: Public Domain

Williams, J.
(concurring). I concur with my Brother Kavanagh. However, since he relies heavily on O’Donnell v State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins Co, 404 Mich 524; 273 NW2d 829 (1979), to which I vigorously dissented, and which I still feel was wrongly decided, I feel obliged to explain myself.
In my O’Donnell dissent, I wrote
"Our opinion, in its simplest form, concludes that it is neither logical nor constitutionally permissible to either eliminate benefit duplication or accomplish premium reduction by subtracting personally paid-for Social Security survivors’ benefits from personally paid-for no-fault benefits while not likewise requiring a subtraction of analogous, personally paid-for private insurance benefits.” 404 Mich 524, 557.
*189In contrast, in the instant case the classification is not between a personally paid-for government benefit plan and a personally paid-for private benefit plan, but between a non-personally paid-for government plan and a personally paid-for private plan. I believe the legislative differentiation between a non-personally paid-for benefit system and a personally paid-for benefit system is a reasonable and constitutional classification. See O’Donnell, p 585. Therefore I can assent to the classification in the instant case but could not and cannot in O’Donnell.
Fitzgerald, J., concurred with Williams, J.