Hlady v. Wolverine Bolt Co., 17

• Decision Date: 21 January 1975
• Docket Number: No. 17,M,17
• Parties: Mary HLADY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WOLVERINE BOLT COMPANY, and Michigan Mutual Liability Company, Defendants-Appellees. ay Term 1974. 393 Mich. 368, 224 N.W.2d 856
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 856

224 N.W.2d 856

Mary HLADY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WOLVERINE BOLT COMPANY and Michigan Mutual Liability Company, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 17, May Term 1974.

393 Mich. 368, 224 N.W.2d 856

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Jan. 21, 1975.

Rodger G. Will for Kelman, Loria, Downing, Schneider & Simpson, Detroit, for plaintiff-appellant.

Le Vasseur, Werner, Mitseff & Brown by Grahame G. Capp, Detroit, for defendants-appellees.

Before the Entire Bench

T. M. KAVANAGH, Chief Justice.

On October 18, 1945 Mary Hlady's right hand got caught in a punch press at work. This industrial accident amputated four fingers on that hand. Her employer, Wolverine Bolt Company, reported this injury to the Compensation Commission of the Department of Labor and paid workmen's compensation benefits for the loss of her four fingers.

Upon expiration of the statutory 100 week payment for the specific loss sustained, plaintiff filed an application for hearing and adjustment of claim with the compensation commission in December, 1947. In that application the plaintiff alleged that her industrial injury had resulted in the industrial loss of use of her right hand and/or general disability.

At a hearing held in 1948 Commissioner McAuliffe stated the issue in this case precisely as follows:

'The present issue is solely whether plaintiff still has any right to compensation in addition to that heretofore paid for the specific loss.'

After hearing the medical testimony, Commissioner McAuliffe found as follows:

'I further find that the plaintiff failed to establish that she has any further disability Over and beyond the natural consequences of the loss of her four fingers on the right hand. Hence her claim for compensation in addition to that paid for her specific losses is denied.' (Emphasis added.)

On review of this decision in 1948, the Workmen's Compensation Commission reversed the commissioner, finding 'that the plaintiff has lost the industrial use of her right hand as the result of her amputations of October 18, 1945.'

This Court granted leave to appeal from that decision of the Compensation Commission and decided the issues raised in Hlady v. Wolverine Bolt Co., 325 Mich. 23, 37 N.W.2d 576 (1949). In reversing the Compensation Commission, this Court stated, p. 25, 37 N.W.2d p. 577:

'The record is devoid of testimony tending to prove that plaintiff has suffered Any different or greater loss than normally results from the amputation of four fingers of a hand. Notwithstanding plaintiff claimed that the amputation of her fingers resulted in disabling 'sequelae' and 'general disability', the commission found none Except disability which normally follows such amputations.' (Emphasis added.)

This Court denied any further benefits to plaintiff.

In 1967 plaintiff again filed a petition with the Workmen's Compensation Department asking for further benefits. This statement by the Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board, on review of the case in 1972, put the present issue in this case squarely in focus.

'The Referee's fact-finding accepted by this Board, is that no change in plaintiff's physical condition has taken place since her 1948 adjudication. The only change of any kind has been the VanDorpel ¹ decision, Supra.'

The Appeal Board denied further benefits, basing this denial on their application of the doctrine of Res judicata in light of this Court's prior decision in this matter, and in light of the one-year back rule, part III, § 14 of the Workmen's Compensation Act. ²

The Court of Appeals in an unpublished opinion, Docket No. 13991, March 30, 1973, affirmed the ruling of the Appeal Board. They felt that the present claim was barred by the doctrine Res judicata.

This Court granted leave to appeal from that decision to consider the questions raised above.

Findings of fact by the Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board are conclusive if supported by the evidence presented. Johnson v. Vibradamp Corp., 381 Mich. 388, 162 N.W.2d 139 (1968). This Court is bound by the factual findings of the Appeal Board in the instant case as they are adequately supported by the record before us. Therefore, as the Appeal Board noted, the sole question to be answered by this Court is what effect, if any, our Van Dorpel decision, Supra, has on the rights of the parties to the instant case.

It should be pointed out at the outset, that the Van Dorpel rule itself has not, up to this point in time, mustered a majority on this Court. This Court, however, with the advantage of the passage of time, clearly believes Justice Voelker's opinion more in keeping with the spirit of the Workmen's Compensation Act and the better reasoned opinion. We would lend our support to his views.

In his Van Dorpel opinion, Justice Voelker held that an injured workman who had suffered various specific losses in 1948, and had been paid the statutory amount for these specific losses, but who, Because of the natural consequences which normally follow from various amputations, was still disabled from working at the expiration of the benefits paid for these amputations, was entitled to collect further compensation under the general disability sections of the Workmen's Compensation Act. ³

In effect, Van Dorpel allows benefits for that disability which our Court recognized may have been present in the Hlady, supra, case when it decided the issues in 1949. The facts in Hlady and Van Dorpel are almost identical. The law applied to each has varied with the passage of time. But does our law permit this Court to now reach, 29 years after Mary Hlady's accident, any different result?

There is little question that the doctrine of Res judicata applies to Workmen's Compensation proceedings. Besonen v. Campbell, 243 Mich. 209, 220 N.W. 301 (1928). This Court has cited with approval the rule set forth in 58 Am.Jur., Workmen's Compensation, § 508. See White v. Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., 352 Mich. 201, 89 N.W.2d 439 (1958). This section states:

'The general rule with respect to the effect upon the application of the principles of res judicata to decisions under workmen's compensation acts, of a provision authorizing the modification of an award upon a showing of a change in the employee's condition, is that a compensation award is an adjudication as to the condition of the injured workman at the time it is entered, And conclusive of all matters adjudicable at that time, but it is not an adjudication as to the claimant's future condition and does not preclude subsequent awards or subsquent modifications of the original award upon a showing that the employee's physical condition has changed. * * *' (Emphasis added.)

Mary Hlady's physical condition has not changed since her 1945 injury. The only change has been in the law applied to cases of this nature. However, it has long been the law of this State, starting with the leading case of Jacobson v. Miller, 41 Mich. 90, 1 N.W. 1013 (1879) that the doctrine of Res judicata applies not only to facts previously litigated, but also to points of law which were necessarily adjudicated in determining and deciding the subject matter of the litigation.

In Jones v. Chambers, 353 Mich. 674, 91 N.W.2d 889 (1958) decided just one year after our Van Dorpel decision this Court made that point very clear. We stated, pp. 680, 681, 91 N.W.2d p. 892:

'Where issues of fact or law have been finally decided by a court of competent jurisdiction in 1 legal action which are essential to the maintenance of another legal action, it is universally held that the second action must fail.

'Michigan's leading case on the doctrine of Res judicata is Justice Cooley's opinion in Jacobson v. Miller, 41 Mich. 90, 1 N.W. 1013. The second headnote gives us this pertinent summary:

"An adjudication is conclusive in respect to (1) the subject matter of the litigation, and (2) the point of fact or law or both necessarily settled in determining the issue on the subject matter.'

'See, also Viaene v. Mikel, 349 Mich. 533, 84 N.W.2d 765.

'The courts have, however, divided to some degree as to whether the principle involved is an application of the doctrine of Res judicata, or a somewhat separate doctrine of collateral estoppel.

'The United States supreme court has answered this problem in legal linguistics thus:

"We have often held that under the doctrine of Res judicata a judgment entered in an action conclusively settles that action as to all matters that were Or might have been litigated or adjudged therein. But a prior judgment between the parties has been held to operate as an estoppel in a suit on a cause of action different from that forming the basis for the original suit 'only as to those matters in issue or points controverted, upon the determination of which the finding or verdict was rendered.' This latter aspect of res judicata is the doctrine of collateral estoppel by judgment, established as a procedure for carrying out the public policy of avoiding repetitious litigation.' Partmar Corporation v. Paramount Pictures Theatres Corporation, 347 U.S. 89, 90, 91, 74 S.Ct. 414, 415, 98 L.Ed. 532, 537.' (Emphasis added.)

See also Moritz v. Horsman, 305 Mich. 627, 9 N.W.2d 868, 147 A.L.R. 117 (1943).

Plaintiff asserts that in her previous visit to this Court that she did not specifically raise a Van Dorpel issue and that this Court did not specifically reaffirm its prior holding in Curtis v. Hayes Wheel Co., 211 Mich. 260, 178 N.W. 675 (1920). Therefore, she asserts the doctrine of Res judicata does not apply to the instant proceedings. However, an almost identical argument was presented to this Court in Tessler v. Rothman, 232 Mich. 62, 204 N.W. 694 (1925). In that case the Court stated, pp. 66--68, 204 N.W. pp. 695--696:

'The principle for which the plaintiff contends in this case is well stated in 15 R.C.L. p. 972, § 449, as follows:

"While a judgment is decisive of the points raised by the pleadings, or which might properly be predicated upon them, it does not embrace...