Pike v. City of Wyoming

• Decision Date: 07 October 1987
• Docket Number: Docket No. 78746
• Citation: Pike v. City of Wyoming, 433 N.W.2d 768, 431 Mich. 589 (Mich. 1987)
• Parties: Ronald C. PIKE, Sr., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CITY OF WYOMING, Defendant, and Second Injury Fund, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 768

433 N.W.2d 768

431 Mich. 589

Ronald C. PIKE, Sr., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CITY OF WYOMING, Defendant and Second Injury Fund, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 78746.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued Oct. 7, 1987 (Calendar No. 2).

Decided Nov. 10, 1988.

Williams, Klukowski, Drew & Fotieo, P.C. by Michael P. Szczytko, Grand Rapids, for plaintiff-appellee.

Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Louis J. Caruso, Sol. Gen., Lansing, and Sterling W. Schrock and Richard F. Zapala, Asst. Attys. Gen., Lansing, for defendant Second Injury Fund.

Before the entire bench.

OPINION

GRIFFIN, Justice.

In this workers' compensation case the plaintiff's benefit award was increased due to a determination that his wife was a dependent at the time of his injury. The determination was not based on fact finding, but on Sec. 353(1)(a)(i) ¹ of the Workers' Disability Compensation Act, ² which provides that the wife of an injured employee who lives with him "shall be conclusively presumed to be dependent...." Subsequently, in Day v. W.A. Foote Memorial Hosp., 412 Mich. 698, 316 N.W.2d 712 (1982), this Court struck down as unconstitutional a similar gender-based presumption of a widow's dependency set forth in Sec. 331(a). ³

We hold that the gender-based presumption in Sec. 353(1)(a)(i) is also unconstitutional, and that res judicata does not preclude a redetermination of the wife's dependency. Further, in the interest of fairness, we conclude that our holding will not affect dependency payments already made.

I

Plaintiff filed a petition under the WDCA seeking total and permanent disability benefits for the loss of the industrial use of his legs as the result of an injury which occurred January 12, 1979. Plaintiff claimed his wife as a dependent, and in a decision mailed May 21, 1981, a hearing referee found plaintiff to be permanently disabled and his wife to be a dependent at the time of the injury. ⁴ It was not determined whether plaintiff's wife was dependent in fact because she was conclusively presumed to be a dependent under Sec. 353(1)(a)(i) ⁵ of the act. There was no appeal.

Subsequently, on March 2, 1982, a parallel provision ⁶ of the same act, setting forth a conclusive presumption of dependency in the case of the widow of a deceased employee, ⁷ was declared by this Court to be "an unconstitutional gender-based discrimination because there [was] no similar presumption for widowers." Day, supra at 701, 316 N.W.2d 712. The ruling in Day, based on the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, followed Wengler v. Druggists Mutual Ins. Co., 446 U.S. 142, 100 S.Ct. 1540, 64 L.Ed.2d 107 (1980), which on the same ground had invalidated a similar provision of the Missouri workers' compensation statute.

Thereafter, on July 11, 1983, defendants city and the Second Injury Fund (SIF) filed a petition, alleging that plaintiff's wife was not a dependent in fact and requesting that plaintiff's benefits be reduced ⁸ as of the date on which Day was issued. Plaintiff interposed the defense of res judicata. Dismissal of the petition by the hearing referee was affirmed by the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board on the basis of res judicata. After the Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal, the SIF sought review in this Court. We granted leave to appeal. 428 Mich. 857, 399 N.W.2d 397 (1987).

II

As already noted, this Court's decision in Day, that the conclusive presumption of a widow's dependency was unconstitutional, dealt with a different section of the act. However, at the time Day was decided, the United States Supreme Court had already struck down in seven different cases, on equal protection grounds, statutes containing similar gender-based distinctions. See Wengler, supra; Califano v. Goldfarb, 430 U.S. 199, 97 S.Ct. 1021, 51 L.Ed.2d 270 (1977); Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 97 S.Ct. 451, 50 L.Ed.2d 397 (1976); Stanton v. Stanton, 421 U.S. 7, 95 S.Ct. 1373, 43 L.Ed.2d 688 (1975); Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld, 420 U.S. 636, 95 S.Ct. 1225, 43 L.Ed.2d 514 (1975); Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, 93 S.Ct. 1764, 36 L.Ed.2d 583 (1973); Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71, 92 S.Ct. 251, 30 L.Ed.2d 225 (1971). We conclude that the Supremacy Clause compels a conclusion in this case that Sec. 353(1)(a)(i) is likewise unconstitutional because it provides an injured male worker with an increase in benefits if he has a wife living with him at the time of his injury, while no similar provision is made for an injured female worker whose husband lives with her.

As the Court of Appeals observed in Costa v. Chrysler Corp., 152 Mich.App. 530, 535, 394 N.W.2d 6 (1986), "[t]he wording of Sec. 331(1)(a) which applies to the wife of a 'deceased employee,' is virtually identical to the wording of Sec. 353(1)(a)(i) which applies to the wife of an 'injured employee,' " See also Williams v. Chrysler Corp., 159 Mich.App. 8, 13, 406 N.W.2d 222 (1987).

Thus, on the authority of Wengler and Day, we hold that the gender-based conclusive presumption of a wife's dependency set forth in Sec. 353(1)(a)(i) violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In light of that holding, we turn now to consider whether res judicata bars redetermination of the unappealed finding that plaintiff's wife was a dependent at the time of plaintiff's injury.

III

That res judicata principles are applicable in the workers' compensation context has been recognized by this Court. Hlady v. Wolverine Bolt Co., 393 Mich. 368, 375, 224 N.W.2d 856 (1975); Theodore v. Packing Materials, 396 Mich. 152, 158, 240 N.W.2d 255 (1976); Gose v. Monroe Auto Equipment Co., 409 Mich. 147, 161, 294 N.W.2d 165 (1980). However, workers' compensation determinations, which generally involve claims for continuing benefits, are different by their very nature from judgments rendered in tort and most other civil actions. From time to time, this Court has quoted with approval the rule set forth in 58 Am Jur, Workmen's Compensation, Sec. 508:

"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 subsequent modifications of the original award upon a showing that the employee's physical condition has changed." See Hlady, supra 393 Mich. at 375-376, 224 N.W.2d 856; White v. Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., 352 Mich. 201, 211, 89 N.W.2d 439 (1958).

Disagreement within our Court surfaced in Hlady concerning the applicability of res judicata where there has been a subsequent change in the law, rather than a change in the facts. Justice Levin's explanation included the following:

"The basis of our disagreement is that, in my opinion, a change of law, like a change of fact, eliminates the bar of res judicata where the claimant seeks continuing benefits under a statute providing 'income maintenance.'

"The law can be changed by legislative enactment or court decision. When the Legislature amends a statute, its applicability to a case previously adjudicated is not analyzed in terms of res judicata. The issue then is one of statutory construction: did the Legislature intend the amendment to have retroactive as well as prospective application? Where the change is effected by court decision the analysis should be the same, whether as a matter of policy the new rule of law should apply retroactively as well as prospectively." Hlady, supra 393 Mich. at 387, 224 N.W.2d 856 (Levin, J., concurring).

A

In a non-workers' compensation context this Court has held res judicata not to be a bar where a subsequent change in the law altered the legal principles upon which the case was to be resolved. The plaintiff in Socialist Workers Party v. Secretary of State, 412 Mich. 571, 317 N.W.2d 1 (1982), a political party, had argued in a 1976 federal district court action that a Michigan statute unconstitutionally restricted the party's access to the ballot. The federal district court held the statute to be constitutional, and its ruling was summarily affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. Allen v. Austin, 430 U.S. 924, 97 S.Ct. 1541, 51 L.Ed.2d 769 (1977).

Later, however, in 1980, the same political party filed suit against the same defendant in state circuit court, again challenging the statute on constitutional grounds. The circuit court granted the defendant accelerated judgment on the ground of res judicata; however, this Court granted leave to appeal, and we reversed. Focusing upon the fact that there had been an intervening change by the United States Supreme Court in the legal standard to be applied in determining the constitutionality of legislative restrictions on ballot access, Illinois State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 183, 99 S.Ct. 983, 989, 59 L.Ed.2d 230 (1979), this Court held that under such circumstances res judicata did not bar the subsequent action. Socialist Workers, supra 412 Mich. at 586, 317 N.W.2d 1. See also Young v. Detroit City Clerk, 389 Mich. 333, 207 N.W.2d 126 (1973).

The construction given to provisions of the Internal Revenue Code is sometimes changed by judicial decision. The United States Supreme Court emphasized in Internal Revenue Comm'r v. Sunnen, 333 U.S. 591, 599, 68 S.Ct. 715, 720, 92 L.Ed. 898 (1948), that res judicata must yield at times to a change in the tax law, at least for future purposes:

"A taxpayer may secure a judicial determination of a particular tax matter, a matter which may recur without substantial variation for some years thereafter. But a subsequent modification of the significant facts or a change or development in the...