Redfern v. Sparks-Withington Co., SPARKS-WITHINGTON

• Decision Date: 17 July 1978
• Docket Number: 8,SPARKS-WITHINGTON,Nos. 7,9 and 10,s. 7
• Parties: Anna REDFERN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.COMPANY and American Motorist Insurance Company, Defendants- Appellants, and The Second Injury Fund, Defendant-Appellant. Joseph PASTALENIEC, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. The GREAT A & P TEA COMPANY and the Second Injury Fund, Defendants-Appellants. Walter L. LEGUT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DETROIT WINDOW CLEANING CO. and Michigan State Accident Fund and Second Injury Fund, Defendants-Appellees. Walter L. LEGUT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DETROIT WINDOW CLEANING CO. and Michigan State Accident Fund, Defendants- Appellants. 403 Mich. 63, 268 N.W.2d 28
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 28

268 N.W.2d 28

Anna REDFERN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SPARKS-WITHINGTON COMPANY and American Motorist Insurance

Company, Defendants- Appellants,

and

The Second Injury Fund, Defendant-Appellant.

Joseph PASTALENIEC, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. The GREAT A & P TEA COMPANY and the Second Injury Fund,

Defendants-Appellants.

Walter L. LEGUT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. DETROIT WINDOW CLEANING CO. and Michigan State Accident Fund and Second Injury Fund, Defendants-Appellees.

Walter L. LEGUT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DETROIT WINDOW CLEANING CO. and Michigan State Accident

Fund, Defendants- Appellants.

Nos. 7, 8, 9 and 10.

403 Mich. 63, 268 N.W.2d 28

Supreme Court of Michigan.

July 17, 1978.

L. R. Heuman, Jackson, for plaintiff.

Rappleye, Bannasch & Wilkins, Jackson by John P. Kobrin, Jr., Jackson, of counsel, for plaintiff-appellee Redfern.

George L. Downing, for Kelman, Loria, Downing, Schneider & Simpson, Detroit, for plaintiff-appellee Pastaleniec.

Robert W. Howes, of Kelman, Loria, Downing, Schneider & Simpson, Detroit, for plaintiff Legut.

Conklin, Benham, McLeod, Ducey & Ottaway, P. C. by Thomas P. Chuhran, Detroit, for defendants-appellants, Sparks-Withington Co. and American Motorists Ins. Co.

Lacey & Jones, by Hayim I. Gross, Detroit, for defendants-appellants Great A & P Tea Co.

Vandeveer, Garzia, Tonkin, Kerr & Heaphy, P. C. by James A. Sullivan, Detroit, for Detroit Window Cleaning Co. and Mich. State Acc. Fund.

Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Robert A. Derengoski, Sol. Gen., A. C. Stoddard, Thomas R. Fredericks, Asst. Attys. Gen., Workmen's Compensation Funds Division, Lansing, for Second Injury Fund.

LEVIN, Justice.

Anna Redfern, Joseph Pastaleniec and Walter L. Legut suffered work-related injuries, and compensation for general disability was paid.

In these cases, consolidated on appeal, the workers asserted that as a consequence of their physical injuries they suffered mental illness or cognitive loss constituting "incurable insanity or imbecility" and, therefore, additional compensation should be paid for "total and permanent disability". ¹

The facts and history of the litigation are set forth in fns. 2-4.

The Workers' Compensation Appeal Board declared that

while in its judgment Redfern's mental illness did not constitute "incurable insanity", it was obliged by Sprute v. Herlihy Mid-Continent Co., 32 Mich.App. 574; 189 N.W.2d 89 (1971), to find that she was incurably insane and to award compensation for total and permanent disability; ²

Pastaleniec's "condition meets" the Sprute definition of incurable insanity; ³

although in its judgment Legut was incurably insane, he did not qualify under the Sprute definition; and that his cognitive loss did not constitute imbecility. ⁴

The WCAB found for Redfern because although she seemed able to function normally away from work, her mental illness, as expressed in Sprute, "totally disabled" her from working. It found against Legut, even though it said his case was most appealing, ⁵ because he was working and thus not "disabled". ⁶

In Pastaleniec, there is an additional issue, whether the claimed mental illness was caused by the work injury. The companion case of Deziel v. Difco Laboratories, Inc. (After Remand), 403 Mich. 1, 268 N.W.2d 1 (1978), controls that issue.

We hold that the Court of Appeals did not, in Sprute, correctly define the term "incurable insanity", and that the WCAB's definition, in Legut, of "imbecility" is also incorrect. ⁷ Our conclusions are stated in the penultimate paragraph of this opinion. We remand to the WCAB for further consideration of all three cases in light of this opinion and, in Pastaleniec, of the Deziel opinion.

I

We seek definitions of insanity and imbecility that serve the policies of the workers' disability compensation act.

We agree with the Court of Appeals, in Sprute, that definitions of insanity developed for other purposes, e. g., in the areas of criminal law, civil commitment, testamentary or contractual capacity, would not serve the legislative purpose. Nor do we think that medical definitions should be determinative. Insanity is a legal term which doctors relate to their own terminology with varying and sometimes opposing definitions; there is no consensus.

Before Sprute was decided, the WCAB declared that a worker is "insane" when his injury "affects or destroys his mental capacity to the degree that he is deranged and unfit to be employed because of the unreliability of his behavior with concomitant danger to himself and others." Borg v. Fisher Body Division of General Motors, 1969 WCABO 1246, 1258.

In Sprute the Court of Appeals declared that the WCAB's Borg test was "too restrictive" and specifically rejected the operative phrase "because of the unreliability of his behavior with concomitant danger to himself and others." The court, in partial agreement with the WCAB, declared that the test should be "consistent with the basic principle that the employee's disabling condition makes him unfit for employment. Such a test would be designed to permit the fact finder to allow compensation only when the injury has affected the employee's mental capacity to the extent that it precludes him from gainful employment." Sprute v. Herlihy Mid-Continent Co., supra, 32 Mich.App. pp. 578-579, 189 N.W.2d p. 91 (emphasis supplied).

The court then stated a test which has been applied in subsequent cases, including the three cases now before us:

"An employee is incurably insane under MCL 412.10(b)(6); MSA 17.160(b)(6), if the occupationally-related mental or emotional illness which impairs the employee's mental processes is of totally disabling proportions and is likely to be of long and indefinite duration, thus making gainful employment impossible." Sprute v. Herlihy Mid-Continent Co., supra, p. 579, 189 N.W.2d p. 92. ⁸

Sprute says, in effect, that a worker can recover total and permanent disability benefits for incurable insanity if

(1) he has a mental or emotional illness,

(2) the illness is work related,

(3) the impairment of his mental processes is of totally disabling proportions,

(4) it is likely to be of long and indefinite duration, and

(5) gainful employment is impossible.

We accept criteria 1, 2 and 4; the incapacity must be attributable to work-related mental illness expected to be of long duration. We do not accept criteria 3 and 5, requiring that the impairment of mental processes be totally disabling ⁹ precluding gainful employment.

II

There are two broad categories of workers' compensation benefits: scheduled benefits and general disability benefits. ¹⁰ Scheduled benefits are awarded for specific medical losses without regard to whether there is a reduction of wage earning capacity; ¹¹ in general they are payable for permanent loss of a specific anatomical member or function, e. g., a foot, hand, sight in one eye. General disability benefits are awarded for a loss of wage earning capacity even if there is no specific medical loss. ¹²

Devastating specific losses enumerated in the statute, e. g., both legs or sight of both eyes, are deemed a "total and permanent disability." ¹³ "Incurable insanity or imbecility" is so enumerated.

Sprute and Borg both make "unfitness" for employment a precondition to qualification for total and permanent disability benefits.

With the exception, however, of a distinctive category, "loss of industrial use " of limbs, added to the total and permanent disability definition after its original formulation, ¹⁴ entitlement to compensation for total and permanent disability does not depend on whether the loss affects wage earning capacity.

Since scheduled benefits for all specific losses, major or relatively minor, are payable without regard to loss of wage earning capacity, except for the distinctive and atypical "industrial use" loss, it would not be consonant with the design of the act to regard wage earning capacity as determinative of entitlement to total and permanent disability benefits for incurable insanity and imbecility alone.

Just as a sightless or legless worker may recover total and permanent disability benefits for work-caused loss of both legs or sight without regard to whether there is or continues to be any effect on his wage earning capacity, so too a person suffering work-related mental illness or cognitive impairment of comparable severity may recover such benefits whether or not his wage earning capacity is affected.

All the specific losses affect the quality of life apart from wage earning capacity. A person who suffers the loss of an anatomical member or sight in one eye is impaired in his ability to function normally in everyday life even though there may be no effect on his wage earning capacity. If he loses two members (both legs, both arms, or a leg and an arm) or sight of both eyes, the impairment of normal function and the effect on the worker's personal life is serious.

Loss of mental function or a cognitive loss constituting "incurable insanity or imbecility" has a similar severe affect on the worker's personal life without regard to whether it affects his wage earning capacity.

Mental and cognitive functions are not readily measured. The severity of loss that satisfies the statutory standard is not subject to precise description.

We are persuaded that the legislative purpose was to provide compensation for severe mental illness or cognitive loss comparable in its impact on the quality of the personal, non-vocational life of the worker to the loss of two members or sight of both eyes, the other permanent and total disability categories in the original formulation of the present total and permanent disability provisions. (See fn. 1 for text). Such a loss may also affect the worker'swage earning capacity, but that is not determinative. ¹⁵

A worker who suffers such a severe work-related mental illness or cognitive loss is entitled to total and permanent disability benefits. Where there is no such severe impairment...