Balcer v. Leonard Refineries, Inc., 46

• Decision Date: 17 July 1963
• Docket Number: No. 46,46
• Citation: 122 N.W.2d 805,370 Mich. 531
• Parties: Betty M. BALCER, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. LEONARD REFINERIES, INC., a Michigan corporation, et al., Defendants and Appellants.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 805

122 N.W.2d 805

370 Mich. 531

Betty M. BALCER, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. LEONARD REFINERIES, INC., a Michigan corporation, et al Defendants and Appellants.

No. 46.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

July 17, 1963.

Mitts, Smith & Haughey, Grand Rapids, Fortino, Plaxton, Deatrick & Sheldon, Alma (Sherman H. Cone, Grand Rapids, Alfred J. Fortino, Alma, of counsel), for appellant.

Glassen, Parr, Rhead & McLean, Lansing, for appellee.

Before the Entire Bench.

SMITH, Justice.

Like Moran v. Nafi Corporation, Mich., 122 N.W.2d 800, this case requires a determination of the question of whether the workmen's compensation act bars a wife from asserting against her husband's employer in a separate suit a claim for loss of consortium by reason of alleged negligence of the employer.

Plaintiff filed her declaration in 1961 against Leonard Refineries and others, alleging that on the 15th day of February, 1958, her husband, Robert Balcer, was employed by defendant and appellant, Leonard Refineries, and while so employed and working in the course of his employment was severely injured in an explosion and fire occurring on the premises of Leonard Refineries. It was alleged that Leonard Refineries was negligent in failing to construct, install, maintain and supervise, and operate, the tanks, pipes, valves and gauges used in conjunction with the manufacture and storage of butane gasoline. She claimed damages by reason of her loss of consortium.

Leonard Refineries filed a motion to dismiss based upon (1), the failure of the declaration to state acts of negligence sufficient to constitute a cause of action; and (2), that plaintiff's cause of action for loss of consortium is barred by the workmen's compensation act. After hearing said motion, the trial judge held that plaintiff did state a cause of action and that her claim for loss of consortium was not barred by the workmen's compensation law. From his order denying defendant's motion to dismiss, we granted leave to appeal.

Determining as we do, that the workmen's compensation act provides the exclusive remedy against the employer, we do not come to the issue of whether the declaration sufficiently staed a cause of action in negligence. It is the opinion of the writer that we need go no further than the plain language of the statute, supplemented by recent decision of this Court, to arrive at a proper disposition of this case.

Part I, section 4, of the workmen's compensation law, C.L.1948, § 411.4 (Stat.Ann. § 17.144), reads as follows:

'Where the conditions of liability under this act exist, the right to the recovery of compensation benefits, as herein provided, shall be the exclusive remedy against the employer.'

This Court said in the 1959 case of Lahti v. Fosterling, 357 Mich. 578, at pp. 584, 585, 99 N.W.2d 490, at p. 493, that:

'In dealing with the workmen's compensation act, it is necessary occasionally to bring ourselves back to the original aims and purposes of the act in order to better understand the rights of the parties involved. * * *

'The act was originally adopted to give employers protection against common-law actions and to place upon idustry, where it properly belongs, not only the expense of the hospital and medical bills of the injured employee, but place upon it the burden of making a reasonable contribution to the sustenance of that employee and his dependents during the period of time he is incapacitated from work. This was the express intent of the legislature in adopting this law.'

It would be sufficient, by reference to the two citations above, to conclude that the workmen's compensation act provides the exclusive remedy in cases such as this where the conditions of liability exist. However, because this case, and its companion, are important precedent-setting cases in Michigan, it is desirable to add that the position taken here has impressive support.

Many inquiries into this problem begin by citing 2 Larson's, Workmen's Compensation, § 66.10, p. 141:

'There are three general types of 'exclusive liability' clause which, for present purposes, must be carefully identified with the cases that depend upon them; from the narrowest to the broadest, they are as...