Bowser v. Jacobs
| Decision Date | 19 October 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,Docket Nos. 8197,8353 and 8464,1 |
| Citation | 36 Mich.App. 320,194 N.W.2d 110 |
| Parties | John Anthony BOWSER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Paul E. JACOBS, and Charles Furtaw, jointly and severally, Defendants-Appellees, Secretary of State, As Director of the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund, Defendant-Appellee. Charles E. MILLER, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James REDD, Defendant-Appellant. Dorothy Ann PAYNE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Harvey BLACK and Charles Black, jointly and severally, Defendants-Appellants |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
Sheldon L. Miller, Detroit, for appellant Bowser and appellees Miller and Payne; Theodore M. Rosenberg, Detroit, of counsel in first action.
Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Robert A. Derengoski, Sol. Gen., John F. Potvin, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., Carl K. Carlsen, Asst. Atty. Gen., Detroit, for defendants appellees in first action.
Before LESINSKI, C.J., and R. B. BURNS and LEVIN, JJ.
In the cases before us we are squarely faced with determining the constitutionality of that portion of the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Act (hereinafter the Act) which prevents those covered by workmen's compensation from applying to the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund (hereinafter the Fund) for payment. M.C.L.A. § 257.1101 et seq. (Stat.Ann.1968 Rev. § 9.2801 et seq.).
To facilitate adjudication of this question, this Court ordered that the three causes captioned above be consolidated. All of the cases presently before us are factually identical: plaintiffs are taxicab operators who, while in the course and scope of their employment, were injured in automobile accidents allegedly caused by uninsured motorists. The plaintiffs brought the instant actions against the various uninsured motorists and the Secretary of State in his representative capacity as administrator of the Fund. In each of the cases, the Secretary, relying on section 29 of the Act, sought dismissal of the action against the Fund by way of motion for summary judgment. Plaintiffs resisted these motions by contending that the section was unconstitutional. In the Bowser case, the trial court upheld section 29 as constitutional and granted the Secretary's motion. In Miller and Payne, the trial courts struck down the section as violative of the equal protection clause of the Federal and State Constitutions; these lower courts denied the Secretary's motions with prejudice.
Section 29 of the Act bars the recovery by an injured person from the Fund if the claimant is covered by workmen's compensation with respect to such injury. 1 Plaintiffs assert that this statutory classification is unreasonable, arbitrary, and contravenes the equal protection clause. The Secretary's position is that since the purpose of the Act is to render relief to those who suffer damage attributable to uninsured motorists (and who have no meaningful recovery), the legislature's classification prohibiting those covered by workmen's compensation from proceeding against the Fund is a reasonable, constitutionally permissible distinction.
We accept the Secretary's statement of the purpose of such legislation. This interpretation is given weight by reference to decisions from the courts of other states. See, for example, Askey v. General Accident Fire & Life Assurance Corp. (1968), 30 App.Div.2d 632, 290 N.Y.S.2d 759, aff'd (1969), 24 N.Y.2d 937, 302 N.Y.S.2d 576, 250 N.E.2d 65; Garcia v. Motor Vehicle Accident Indemnification Corp. (1964), 41 Misc.2d 858, 246 N.Y.S.2d 841; Corrigan v. Gassert (1958), 27 N.J. 227, 142 A.2d 209; Dixon v. Gassert (1958), 26 N.J. 1, 138 A.2d 14; Douglas v. Harris (1961), 35 N.J. 270, 173 A.2d 1; Proskurnja v. Elder (1962), 73 N.J.Super. 466, 180 A.2d 200; Tschider v. Burtts (N.D.1967), 149 N.W.2d 710. Given this objective, we must examine the statutory differentiation presently challenged in light of the purposes of the legislative enactment. Fox v. Michigan Employment Security Commission (1967), 379 Mich. 579, 588, 153 N.W.2d 644.
It remains axiomatic that the legislature is to be given great latitude in drawing classifications to effect social, economic, or regulatory legislation. Fox v. Michigan Employment Security Commission, Supra; Levy v. Louisiana (1968), 391 U.S. 68, 88 S.Ct. 1509, 20 L.Ed.2d 436. This holds true for uninsured or unsatisfied judgment fund statutes as well. See Allied American Mutual Fire Insurance Co. v. Commissioner of Motor Vehicles (1959), 219 Md. 607, 150 A.2d 421. See, also, Naudzius v. Lahr (1931), 253 Mich. 216, 223, 234 N.W. 581.
We would be persuaded by the Secretary's argument, were it not for the fact that, in several other instances, the Act allows other persons to reach alternative indemnities without prohibiting recovery from the Fund.
The availability of Any workmen's compensation totally bars an injured party from looking to the Fund for recovery of any amount. 2 But section 22(4) of the Act, M.C.L.A. § 257.1122(4) (Stat.Ann.1968 Rev. § 9.2822(4)), permits the beneficiaries of a life insurance policy to recover from the Fund for the death of a person caused by an uninsured motorist. Certainly it may be said that the existence of life insurance could adequately compensate survivors for their loss. The Act allows these persons to recover and, incongruously, refuses an employee to look to the Fund for relief. Furthermore, section 23(2) of the Act, M.C.L.A. § 257.1123(2) (Stat.Ann.1968 Rev. § 9.2823(2)), permits one to apply for payment out of the Fund even after exhausting one's coverage on a private policy of automobile insurance (presumably uninsured motorist coverage existing in many such policies).
In Green v. Blicharski (1971), 32 Mich.App. 15, 188 N.W.2d 113, plaintiff was injured by an uninsured motorist. Plaintiff owned a private automobile insurance policy with uninsured motorist coverage. Plaintiff's insurer paid $7,250 to plaintiff after plaintiff and the insurer arbitrated the claim. Plaintiff then sought damages from the uninsured motorist and the Fund; plaintiff obtained a judgment for $16,000. This Court held in that case that the Secretary was liable for the excess of the judgment over the payment made by the insurer. However, had plaintiff in the Green case received a workmen's compensation award of $7,250, he would have been unable to secure any amount from the Fund in excess of that paid to him by the employer or his workmen's compensation carrier.
The legislative aim of this social legislation, as noted above, is to compensate those injured by uninsured tortfeasors who would otherwise have had no source of recovery. But, as we have seen, some persons who have available avenues of recovery are permitted to reach the Fund but injured employees are not. We are constrained to agree that the legislature has arbitrarily carved out this class from those who have recourse to the Fund. This classification is one made without the force of compelling logic; we find it unconstitutionally discriminatory.
In Fox v. Michigan Employment Security Commission, Supra, several similar examples of discrimination were challenged. In that case, weekly unemployment benefits were denied by statute to those receiving total permanent, partial permanent, or temporary disability workmen's compensation payments as well as to those receiving weekly workmen's compensation benefits. However, the statute permitted recipients of death, workmen's compensation benefits, 'specific loss' benefits, and those who had elected to accept their workmen's compensation award in a 'lump sum' to receive unemployment compensation. Noting that the object of the statute was to preclude the possibility of duplication of benefits, the Court held the distinctions to be arbitrary since some persons were able, because of the statutory scheme, to reach unemployment benefits and others similarly situated were not. 3
We reverse and remand in the Bowser case with an order to the trial court to proceed to trial for a determination of liability.
We remand in the Miller and Payne cases with orders to try the cases so as to fix liability.
No costs, a public question being involved.
Although I am in complete sympathy with the result reached by my colleagues, on the record presented it is beyond our authority to declare the challenged legislative classification unconstitutional.
Time and again we have been instructed that 'the legislature may recognize degrees of evil and adapt its legislation accordingly' (Truax v. Raich (1915), 239 U.S. 33, 43, 36 S.Ct. 7, 11, 60 L.Ed. 131), that it need not cover 'the whole field of possible abuses' (Patsone v. Pennsylvania (1914), 232 U.S. 138, 144, 34 S.Ct. 281, 282, 58 L.Ed. 539), and that (Health & Milligan Manufacturing Company v. Worst (1907), 207 U.S. 338, 354, 355, 28 S.Ct. 114, 119, 52 L.Ed. 236). Accord: Naudzius v. Lahr (1931), 253 Mich. 216, 234 N.W. 581; Mutchall v. City of Kalamazoo (1948), 323 Mich. 215, 227, 35 N.W.2d 245; Tracer v. Bushre (1968), 381 Mich. 282, 291, 160 N.W.2d 898; People v. Chapman (1942), 301 Mich. 584, 599, 4 N.W.2d 18.
A Patsone v. Pennsylvania, Supra, 232 U.S. p. 144, 34 S.Ct. p. 282. Merely because a classification may lack, as my colleagues in this case argue, 'the force of compelling logic' or is 'incongruous' does not mean that it accomplishes an 'invidious discrimination'. And, unless the challenged discrimination is invidious, we may not properly interfere with the legislative judgment. Wolodzko v. Wayne County Circuit Judge (1969), 382 Mich. 528, 534, 170 N.W.2d 9 (discussed in fn. 6, Infra); see, also, cases cited and discussed in part I, Infra.
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...in the analogous principal cases of Fox v. Employment Security Comm., 379 Mich. 579, 153 N.W.2d 644 (1967), and Bowser v. Jacobs, 36 Mich.App. 320, 194 N.W.2d 110 (1971), that the classification matrix drawn by the Legislature is without the force of requisite logic and is therefore both un......
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