Magreta v. Ambassador Steel Co.

• Decision Date: 06 May 1968
• Docket Number: No. 14,14
• Citation: 158 N.W.2d 473,380 Mich. 513
• Parties: Francis A. MAGRETA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AMBASSADOR STEEL COMPANY and General Accident Assurance Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 473

158 N.W.2d 473

380 Mich. 513

Francis A. MAGRETA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. AMBASSADOR STEEL COMPANY and General Accident Assurance Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 14.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

May 6, 1968.

Kelman, Loria, Downing & Schneider, Detroit, for plaintiff-appellant.

LeVasseur, Werner, Mitseff & Brown, Detroit, for defendants-appellees.

Stanley E. Beattie, Buell Doelle, Detroit, for Michigan Self Insurers Assn., Inc.

Stephen I. Schlossberg, John A. Fillion, Jordan Rossen, Bernard F. Ashe, Detroit, for International Union, UAW, amicus curiae.

Charles H. King, Detroit, for Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., American Ins. Assn., American Mutual Ins. Alliance, Auto-Owners Ins. Co., Citizens Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., Employers Mutual of Wausau, Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., Michigan Mutual Liability Co., Michigan State Accident Fund, The Travelers Ins. Companies, amicus curiae.

Before the entire bench (on rehearing).

O'HARA, Justice.

Our decision in this case upon its original presentation is reported in 378 Mich. 689, 148 N.W.2d 767. It was unanimous. The facts are therein set forth in complete detail. We shall not restate them herein.

The case is one of statutory interpretation. The statute involved is the Workmen's Compensation Act. ¹ The specific sections are §§ 9 and 10 of part 2. They deal with the minimum and maximum benefits limitations payable for total incapacity under part 2, § 9, and the maximum limitations upon benefits for partial incapacity under part 2, § 10.

Our decision admittedly changed the uniform construction accorded the sections both by the Workmen's Compensation Appeal Board and by this Court over the years since its enactment.

We preface our decision here with the recognition that there is no vested right in the continuation of judicial error. If we have been wrong in our interpretation, we are not only free to, but obligated to correct that error.

The effect of our original decision is well phrased in one of the many amicus briefs filed in response to our grant of permission to any party of interest in the subject matter who sought to do so. It is phrased as the statement of issue before us on this rehearing:

'The issue before the Court is whether the maximum dollar limitations on the compensation to be paid to partially incapacitated employees are applicable to the benefits payable to employees who suffer what are called 'schedule losses."

Schedule losses, as above used, are synonymous with specific loss benefits payable for loss or functional destruction of a particular anatomical member, e.g., a hand, foot, or leg.

We held in our prior decision that such dollar limitations were not so applicable. This is to say that the historic 'not less than, nor more than x dollars' in the computation of benefit payments in schedule losses did not obtain. The pragmatic result was to remove the ceiling on weekly benefits, and to set claimant's award, and any award to those similarly situated, at 2/3 of his weekly earnings, whatever the amount thereof. We further held that this amount was to be neither diminished nor enlarged by reason of the number of his dependents.

We are impelled to reverse our previous position. The prior interpretation accorded to the 2 involved sections and their relationship to each other is what may properly be called a grammatical analytical approach. It can be justified in a purist sense of according to the words, clause, antecedent, and similar terms their grammatical definitions. Our duty extends beyond this method but does not exclude it completely.

In statutory construction we are bound to determine legislative intent. In the exercise of that duty we are obligated to utilize all the tools of the historic judicial method. We feel we overemphasized the grammatical analysis to the prejudice of other well recognized and long established methods. In addition, we underevaluated a wisely self-imposed limitation of the appellate process.

We discuss first our departure from the usual appellate process. In our original decision, we said at p. 701, at p. 773 of 148 N.W.2d:

'Both parties to this appeal, it should be noted, proceed on the assumption that the specific loss benefits specified in the schedule in part 2, § 10 are subject to the maximum and minimum benefit limitations, * * *.'

Of course they did, and small wonder for that 'assumption' had been part of the settled case law and administrative application of the statute since its inception. Simply put, we decided this case upon an issue that was not only never raised below, it was not even considered an issue before the referee, the appeal board, or the Court of Appeals, we hardly need cite authority for the proposition that such an issue is not generally considered by any appellate court, and particularly by a court of ultimate review. We mention Young v. Morrall, 359 Mich. 180, p. 187, 101 N.W.2d 358, as expressive of the general principle.

The second basis which convinces us we did not properly apply the recognized tests of statutory construction was our failure to accord sufficient weight to the invariant interpretation accorded the statute by the Commission legislatively delegated to administer it. Admittedly, our original decision gave to the statute an interpretation in conflict with that accorded it by the Commission over the years.

In Boyer-Campbell Co. v. Fry, 271 Mich. 282, at p. 296, 260 N.W. 165, at p. 170, we quoted with approval the following language of the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Moore, 95 U.S. 760, 24 L.Ed. 588:

"the construction given to a statute by those charged with the duty of executing it is always entitled to the most respectful consideration and ought not to be overruled without cogent reasons."

Thirdly, we must recognize that we did not consider the doctrine of legislative acquiescence to have any bearing on the issue. We would not be understood to hold that standing alone this principle is controlling yet we must assume that the legislature was aware of the prior interpretation of the act. Session after session the act has been amended in some particular, but no specific amendment of the language here under consideration was made. In support of this basic principle we refer to the language in In re Clayton Estate, 343 Mich. 101, pp. 106, 107, 72 N.W.2d 1, p. 4:

'The silence of the legislature since 1922 to this Court's interpretation of its intent as expressed in the Fish Case (In re Fish's Estate, 219 Mich. 369, 189 N.W. 177), can only be construed as consent to the accuracy of that interpretation.'

The same may be said to be applicable to the question here presented.

Lastly, we mention that the concept of a maximum and minimum upon compensation benefits has been a settled principle in our act since its inception. When we, by our prior holding, removed any ceiling on benefits we drastically changed its basic approach to the amount of benefits to be allowed. We introduced newly into the act, a concept of 2/3 of whatever wages a claimant had been making as his measure of compensation, as against the concept of a maximum imposed by the act itself. On due reflection, we are constrained to hold that if such an innovation in a statute is to be made it is properly to be made by the legislature.

For the reasons herein detailed, we reverse ourselves as expressed in our original opinion in Magreta v. Ambassador Steel Co., 378 Mich. 689, 148 N.W.2d 767.

Nothing set forth above shall be construed as affecting, as precedent or otherwise, any portion of the Court's original opinion save that which is addressed to the restricted question framed by our order granting rehearing. That order, entered July 21, 1967, confined rehearing to question whether the maximum rates provided in § 9, part 2 of the Workmen's Compensation Act apply to specific loss cases enumerated in § 10 where the specific loss is less than total and permanent.

The result now determined is that the order of the Court of Appeals, denying leave to review the appeal board's order, is reinstated. No costs on appeal to either court, and no costs on rehearing, are allowed, this being a case of statutory interpretation.

DETHMERS, C.J., and KELLY, BLACK, ADAMS and BRENNAN, JJ., concurred with O'HARA, J.

BLACK, Justice.

I agree with Justice O'Hara. Along with my endorsement of his opinion, I believe it permissible that further reference be made to the degree of respect we ordinary mortals of the 1960's, 'Drest in a little brief authority'*, owe to the timelessly valuable precepts which appeared early in our reports. Three of us--still here--pursued that thought pertinently when People v. Holbrook, 373 Mich. 94, 99, 128 N.W.2d 484, 486, was handed down:

'We have in this State a rule of statutory construction which--for this case--will bear repeating. It is that a long continued construction, given a long-standing statute by executive officers charged with its execution and administration (no one meanwhile having questioned such construction so far as our reports disclose), is entitled to most respectful consideration and will not be overruled without cogent reasons.'

On the occasion of Holbrook this Court had before it for guidance, not only a unanimous decision written by Mr. Justice Cooley (Johnson v. Ballou, 28 Mich. 379) but also a long since mature opinion of the attorney general; both of which amply supported the principle quoted above. The period of continuously unchallenged administrative interpretation and application involved in this case being at least as long as that considered in Holbrook, I would adhere to the even more firm convictions which this Court recorded in Malonny v. Mahar, 1 Mich. 26, 30:

'The construction I have given to the statute is the construction which it has received by the executive department of the state government, and by the county treasurers, ever since the revised statutes went into operation, and its correctness has never, up to...