Pierce v. General Motors Corp.
| Decision Date | 04 August 1993 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 91687,No. 9,9 |
| Parties | Paul E. PIERCE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Fisher Body Division, Defendant-Appellant. Calendar |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
Sachs, Waldman, O'Hare, Helveston, Hodges & Barnes, P.C. by Granner S. Ries, Detroit, for plaintiff-appellee.
Braun Kendrick Finkbeiner by Bruce L. Dalrymple, and Scott C. Strattard, Saginaw, for defendant-appellant General Motors Corp.
In this case we are asked to review the award of workers' compensation benefits granted on the basis of alcoholism and a related nervous condition suffered by plaintiff. 1 We find that the WCAB erroneously included the plaintiff's personal addiction to alcohol as a variable in its decision to award disability benefits. Thus, we vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals and remand to the board to determine whether plaintiff sustained any disabling personal injury that is separate and apart from any disability caused by his alcoholism.
Plaintiff, born January 11, 1942, began his employment with defendant in May 1963. In his petition for hearing, plaintiff claimed disability in the form of personal injury or disablement from occupational disease resulting from repeated and injurious harassment in the course of employment. The nature of the disability was indicated as nerves and a nervous disability. Before the hearing referee, plaintiff testified that when he began working for defendant he drank moderately and experienced no nervous problems. Plaintiff testified further, however, that he developed a nervous condition in 1967 or 1968. 2
During his employment, plaintiff took several sick leaves, citing "nerves" as his complaint. The record establishes that he was hospitalized several times for acute alcoholism and associated nervous problems, including once, in September 1981, after he discontinued working for defendant. Plaintiff alleged several general incidents of harassment, such as being given work outside his job assignment, being blamed for the malfunction of defective machines, and not being properly trained to operate the larger trucks. Plaintiff alleges that this harassment provoked him to drink and caused him to develop a nervous disorder. He testified that until the last year of his employment, he was able to drink, control his nervous condition, and still function at work.
Plaintiff asserts that his last year at work with defendant was the most devastating and was the cause of the ultimate permanent disability that precludes him from working. In January 1981, just before his final disability leave, plaintiff was involved in a mishap while operating a plant truck. The truck tipped over because of improper loading and unloading. Plaintiff blamed his supervisor for the mishap, alleging a failure to instruct him regarding the proper loading of a truck. Plaintiff's last day of work was January 9, 1981. The hearing referee determined the date of the disability to be January 19, 1981. Plaintiff retired with permanent disability effective September 1, 1981. At the time of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board decision, plaintiff was still a drinking alcoholic.
The hearing referee granted plaintiff's claim for an open award on the basis of a nervous disability. The WCAB, in a two to one decision, affirmed the hearing referee's decision. The WCAB majority found that "plaintiff's disability stems from emotional problems and drinking, such that we cannot extract one from the other." Pierce v. General Motors Corp., 1988 WCABO 1. The board majority further found that plaintiff's father was an alcoholic, that plaintiff began drinking at age thirteen or fourteen, that he is presently unable to control his drinking, id. at 9, and then proceeded to analyze the facts under Deziel v. Difco Laboratories, Inc. (After Remand), 403 Mich. 1, 268 N.W.2d 1 (1978):
"[I]f plaintiff's emotional problems are linked to his work and were caused or aggravated by his work, contributing to his disability, in our view, plaintiff is entitled to compensation...." Pierce at 9. 3
The board majority concluded that 1) plaintiff is totally disabled; 2) although plaintiff's testimony is vague with respect to dates, his testimony regarding job transfers, consultations with his union, and a work mishap establish the existence of work incidents triggering his emotional condition, and constitute personal injuries; and 3) that plaintiff honestly believes that work caused his disability. The WCAB majority refused to utilize the analysis of Gacioch v. Stroh Brewery Co., 426 Mich. 612, 396 N.W.2d 1 (1986), finding the circumstances in Gacioch to be so unique as to limit the decision to its facts.
In a separate opinion, the dissenting board member stated that she would find that plaintiff failed to establish a sufficient causal nexus between his employment and his chronic alcoholism. WCABO at 13. The dissent concluded that a work nexus was not established because plaintiff's nervous condition began in 1967, but plaintiff continued to work until 1981, and by plaintiff's own admission, he could drink alcohol and still work.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the findings and decision of the WCAB. 4 The Court identified plaintiff's illness as a psychiatric disability that caused or aggravated plaintiff's alcoholism. It distinguished Gacioch on the basis of the plaintiff's allegation in Gacioch of a disability due solely to alcoholism, while in the present case plaintiff alleges a psychiatric disability that is only partially linked to alcoholism. 5 The Court then opined that the test established in Deziel was applicable, and that there was sufficient, competent evidence to support the board's findings. 6 We then granted defendant's application for leave to appeal. 7
It is unclear from the findings of the WCAB 8 whether plaintiff's alcoholism stemmed from an underlying psychiatric disorder or whether the psychiatric disorder arose out of an increase in plaintiff's alcoholic condition. 9 Hence, we disagree with the Court of Appeals identification of plaintiff's illness as a psychiatric illness that caused plaintiff's alcoholism. We also disagree with plaintiff's assertion on appeal that it has been established that plaintiff's alcoholism is a sequela of his nervous disorder.
The deposition testimony of the medical experts produced by both defendant and plaintiff demonstrates the ambiguity of plaintiff's disability. From their testimony, it is not evident which disorder precipitated the other, or if either could have existed independently. Plaintiff was a moderate drinker before beginning work in 1963 for defendant, and before 1963, he did not suffer from any nervous condition. Plaintiff testified that his nervous condition developed about 1967 or 1968, and his drinking became progressively heavier during his employment with defendant. Plaintiff further testified that until his last year he could function at work despite his drinking and nervous condition. Although ambiguous with regard to the exact etiology of plaintiff's disability, the factual findings made by the board and other evidence in the record clearly demonstrate that alcoholism played a primary role in plaintiff's claimed injury.
We reject the invitation by plaintiff to expand the chapter three personal injury analysis of workers' compensation claims to cover diseases of addiction. 10 In order to be awarded benefits under a chapter three personal injury analysis, the claimant must show that he suffered a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment. Although no compensation is awarded for a disability caused by an ordinary disease of life, a claimant may recover workers' compensation benefits when his employment aggravates, accelerates, or combines with a preexisting condition to produce a personal injury.
Alcoholism is a progressive disease. 11 The compulsion and the consumption will accelerate until it is interrupted. 12 It is in the nature of the disease that its victims will find conditions and circumstances at home, at work, and in between to justify the increased need for alcohol. 13 It is not work and its attendant stresses that aggravate alcoholism; it is alcohol. 14 It is not a job or occupation that compels alcoholics to consume alcohol; it is the disease from which they suffer. 15 Individuals who suffer from alcoholism hold the most essential key to their recovery. 16 It defies logic and what is now known about the nature of alcoholism to declare that a job or occupation is responsible for accelerating or aggravating a worker's alcoholism when alcoholism is a progressive disease, and aggravation of which is caused by the alcohol itself rather than by employment. 17
In Gacioch, we recognized that chronic alcoholism is a disease. Id. at 618, 396 N.W.2d 1. 18 We remanded that case to the WCAB for a determination whether the plaintiff satisfied his burden of proving his claim: that the claimant, as a brewery worker, was more prone to develop alcoholism than the general public because of conditions characteristic of and peculiar to the business of the defendant. The Gacioch analysis confined compensation for diseases of addiction into a chapter four occupational disease analysis. Justice Brickley, writing separately, favored denial of compensation for aggravation of preexisting diseases where the "aggravating conditions are not required by the job and the disease is one from which recovery primarily depends upon personal motivation." Id. at 629, 396 N.W.2d 1. Where a personal addiction plays a significant role in a claimed mental or emotional injury, a finding that such an injury is work related should be precluded. 19 Justice Boyle, in a concurring opinion joined by Justice Riley, indicated that she was not convinced that "alcoholism or a predisposition thereto, whether or not...
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