Quinton v. General Motors Corp.

• Decision Date: 30 July 1996
• Docket Number: Docket No. 100787,No. 1,1
• Parties: Robert L. QUINTON, Jr., and James E. Quinton, co-executors of the Estate of Harry Lee Quinton, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee. Calendar
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 677

551 N.W.2d 677

453 Mich. 63

Robert L. QUINTON, Jr., and James E. Quinton, co-executors of the Estate of Harry Lee Quinton, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.

Docket No. 100787.

Calendar No. 1.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued April 10, 1996.

Decided July 30, 1996.

Levine, Benjamin, Tushman, Bratt, Jerris & Stein, Southfield, and Sachs, Waldman, O'Hare, Helveston, Bogas & McIntosh, P.C. by Theodore Sachs and Granner S. Ries, Detroit, for plaintiffs.

Conklin, Benham, Ducey, Listman & Chuhran, P.C. by Martin L. Critchell, Detroit, for defendants.

Jordan Rossen, Ralph O. Jones, and Charles M. Gayney, Detroit, for International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America-UAW.

Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, and Morrison Zack, Assistant Attorney General, Detroit, for Bureau of Workers' Disability Compensation.

OPINION

LEVIN, Justice.

Following this Court's decision in Franks v. White Pine Copper Div., 422 Mich. 636, 649-658, 375 N.W.2d 715 (1985), the Worker's Compensation Appeal Board in 1986 ruled, pursuant to Franks, that the weekly benefits owed to plaintiffs' decedent were subject to coordination pursuant to § 354 of the Worker's Disability Compensation Act, ¹ commencing March 31, 1982.

The question presented is whether the doctrine of separation of powers precludes, with respect to workers whose weekly benefits were held to be subject to coordination in, or pursuant to, Franks, application of the 1987 legislation providing that Franks was erroneously decided and that the legislative intention was not to coordinate respecting personal injuries occurring before March 31, 1982. A majority holds that the 1987 legislation is applicable to the weekly benefits of all workers injured before March 31, 1982, without regard to whether there was a prior adjudication in, or pursuant to, Franks.

I

Harry L. Quinton was born in 1915. He worked for General Motors Corporation until July, 1974. After his last day of work at General Motors, he filed a petition for hearing, alleging that his employment had caused disabling silicosis and emphysema. A 1976 decision of a hearing referee provided an open award of benefits, requiring General Motors to pay weekly benefits until further order of the Bureau of Worker's Disability Compensation. The referee's decision was not appealed.

1981 P.A. 203 added § 354 of the Worker's Disability Compensation Act. ² As explained in Franks, this section directs that worker's compensation benefits be reduced by the amount of certain pension and retirement payments that an injured employee may be receiving. The effective date was March 31, 1982.

In April, 1982, and again in July, 1982, General Motors notified Quinton that his benefits would be reduced under § 354, reflecting a coordination of his after-tax pension benefit. ³

Quinton filed a May, 1982, petition for hearing, and General Motors filed a July, 1982, notice of dispute. The referee's decision directed General Motors to restore Quinton's full weekly benefits, saying that § 354 "may not be applied retro-actively."

The WCAB affirmed in 1983. ⁴ The Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal. This Court held this case in abeyance pending a decision in Franks. ⁵

Franks was decided in October, 1985. This Court held that § 354 was intended to apply retroactively, and thus "an employer may reduce the amount of workers' compensation benefits payable after March 31, 1982, for periods of disability after that date, by deducting other employer-financed benefits as provided in § 354...." ⁶ This Court then reversed the judgment of the WCAB in this case, and remanded to the WCAB "for entry of a judgment consistent with our decision in [Franks ]." ⁷

On remand, a two-member panel of the WCAB ruled in May, 1986, that Quinton's benefits were subject to coordination under § 354 "effective March 31, 1982, and thereafter," pursuant to Franks. ⁸

The Legislature quickly responded. 1987 P.A. 28 amended § 354, indicating its disagreement with the decision of this Court in Franks. ⁹ The Legislature directed in amended subsections 354(17)-(20) that there be no coordination for persons like the plaintiff, whose injury was before March 31, 1982. ¹⁰

Subsections 354(17)-(20) were challenged in this Court, but the legislation was found to be constitutional. Romein v. General Motors Corp., 436 Mich. 515, 462 N.W.2d 555 (1990). ¹¹

Because Romein was being appealed to the United States Supreme Court, this Court stayed enforcement of subsections 354(17)-(20). ¹² After the United States Supreme Court affirmed Romein in March, 1992, this Court vacated the stay and directed that the statute be enforced. ¹³

A lawyer representing Quinton wrote, in April, 1992, to General Motors, seeking repayment of all coordinated benefits, plus interest. When the money was not paid, the lawyer requested a hearing. A magistrate ordered General Motors to "repay with interest all past coordinated benefits," and directed that General Motors "shall not coordinate any future weekly Workers' Compensation benefits." The magistrate said that he was bound by the Legislature's action, and by the April, 1992, enforcement order that this Court entered following Romein.

General Motors again appealed. In January, 1994, the Worker's Compensation Appellate Commission reversed the decision of the magistrate. It noted this Court's statement in Romein that § 354 "may validly be applied to all compensation liabilities within its terms except those which have been reduced to final judgment before its enactment." ¹⁴ The WCAC referenced this Court's further explanation:

We hold, therefore, that 1987 P.A. 28 is constitutional even though it applies to benefits due and payable for a period before the effective date of the statute. We hold further that only judgments entered under former law are immune from this legislative modification. This limitation protects the vested rights that form in reliance on an award at the moment it is reduced to a final judgment. [436 Mich. at 533, 462 N.W.2d 555.]

The WCAC said that this "clear and unequivocal" holding of Romein meant that 1987 P.A. 28 "cannot be applied to the parties in this matter, because the right to coordinate was entered as a final judgment in 1986, before the effective date of the amendments." ¹⁵

The Court of Appeals, in denying leave to appeal, stated:

The Court orders that the application for leave to appeal is denied for lack of merit in the grounds presented in light of the final judgment entered by the Worker's Compensation Appeal Board on May 28, 1986, pursuant to the Supreme Court's direction in Quinton v. General Motors Corp., 424 Mich. 884, 381 N.W.2d 717 (1986).

The plaintiffs applied to this Court for leave to appeal. ¹⁶

II

In Romein, this Court held that 1987 P.A. 28 was a constitutional exercise of the Legislature's authority. By enacting subsections 354(17)-(20), the Legislature established that persons injured before March 31, 1982, are not subject to the coordination requirements of § 354.

This Court said, however, in Romein that the provisions of subsections 354(17)-(20) do not apply where the rights of the parties were reduced to final judgment before the effective date of 1987 P.A. 28:

The employers' right to coordinate benefits as provided by statute in 1982 was repealed by 1987 P.A. 28 through a constitutional exercise of legislative authority to regulate social and economic life. We hold that 1987 P.A. 28 does not violate the Due Process Clauses of the state and federal constitutions, the Contract Clause of the federal constitution, or the Separation of Powers Clause of the Michigan Constitution, so long as it is not applied to impair coordination rights that were reduced to final judgment before its effective date. [436 Mich. at 539-540, 462 N.W.2d 555 (emphasis added).]

This Court declared this exception for final judgments because, at the time, we were concerned that a broader order permitting all qualifying claimants to recover improperly coordinated benefits, regardless of the extent to which they had litigated their claims, might run afoul of either the Michigan or federal constitution. This Court's statement was, however, dicta. Romein and its companion case, Gonzales, were on direct appeal; their cases had not, as had Quinton's case, been dismissed pursuant to Franks in an order that had become final before the enactment of the 1987 legislation.

It is well-settled that issues neither briefed nor argued cannot be definitively decided, and that the Court's pronouncements, especially dicta, without briefing and argument, are not stare decisis. ¹⁷ I therefore turn to the Michigan and United States Constitutions to consider what potential barriers to recovery Quinton's claim presents that were absent in Romein.

III

As most know from their early American history lessons, this country's founders and the authors of the Constitution of the United States of America established a tripartite system of government. The three branches, executive, judiciary, and legislative, are to remain separate and independent.

Of particular relevance to this case, the doctrine of separation of powers has been said by text writers to stand for the proposition that the Legislature may not frustrate the decisions of the judiciary by subjecting them to "revision, suspension, modification, or other review by the executive or legislative branches." ¹⁸ The United States Supreme Court early intimated:

It is not within the power of a legislature to take away rights which have been once vested by a judgment. Legislation may act on subsequent proceedings, may abate actions pending, but when those actions have passed into judgment the power of the legislature to disturb the rights created thereby ceases.[ ¹⁹

The doctrine of separation of powers is expressly set forth in the Michigan Constitution:

The powers...