Sellers v. Hauch

• Decision Date: 09 May 1990
• Docket Number: 104294 and 104314,Nos. 103899,s. 103899
• Citation: 183 Mich.App. 1,454 N.W.2d 150
• Parties: Henry P. SELLERS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Clifford HAUCH and Auto-Owners Insurance Company, Defendants-Appellants. Andelia CASAREZ, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. BROWN & BROWN FARMS, Pioneer Insurance Company and Second Injury Fund, Defendants-Appellants. 183 Mich.App. 1, 454 N.W.2d 150
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 150

454 N.W.2d 150

Henry P. SELLERS, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. Clifford HAUCH and Auto-Owners Insurance Company,

Defendants-Appellants.

Andelia CASAREZ, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. BROWN & BROWN FARMS, Pioneer Insurance Company and Second

Injury Fund, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 103899, 104294 and 104314.

183 Mich.App. 1, 454 N.W.2d 150

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted June 13, 1989.

Decided April 2, 1990.

Released for Publication May 9, 1990.

[183 MICHAPP 3] Miller & Miller, P.C. by Jerry L. Miller, Kalamazoo, for Henry P. Sellers.

William G. Reamon, P.C. by William G. Reamon, Sr., and William G. Reamon, Jr., Grand Rapids, for Andelia Casarez.

Troff, Fisher, Klute, Petzke & Ammeson by Charles Ammeson, St. Joseph, for Clifford Hauch and Auto-Owners Ins. Co.

Smith, Haughey, Rice & Roegge by Jon D. Vander Ploeg, Grand Rapids, for Brown & Brown Farms and Pioneer Ins. Co.

Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Louis J. Caruso, Sol. Gen., and Leonard J. Malinowksi, Asst. Atty. Gen., Lansing, for the Second Injury Fund.

Before HOLBROOK, P.J., and SAWYER and GRIFFIN, JJ.

HOLBROOK, Presiding Judge.

In Sellers v. Hauch, defendants appeal by leave granted from a decision of the Workers' Compensation Appeal Board awarding[183 MICHAPP 4] plaintiff Henry P. Sellers workers' compensation benefits.

In Casarez v. Brown & Brown Farms, defendants appeal by leave granted the determination of the WCAB to award plaintiff Audelia Casarez benefits payable by defendants Brown & Brown Farms (plaintiff's employer), the employer's insurance company, and the Second Injury Fund.

Although factually unrelated, both appeals present the common issue of whether to accord retroactive application to the decision in Eastway v. Eisenga, 420 Mich. 410, 362 N.W.2d 684 (1984). In Eastway, the Court upheld the constitutionality of Sec. 115 of the Workers' Disability Compensation Act, M.C.L. Sec. 418.115; M.S.A. Sec. 17.237(115), notwithstanding that this statute was by previous judicial declarations viewed as unconstitutional because it singled out agricultural workers as a class subject to discriminatory, restrictive terms of eligibility for workers' compensation benefits. Claimants in both cases on appeal are migrant agricultural workers who sustained disabling injuries prior to Eastway, but who were awarded benefits by the WCAB in decisions on appeals that were pending on Eastway's decision date. Defendants in both cases appeal in this Court to raise a common challenge to the WCAB's rulings limiting Eastway to a purely prospective basis and allowing plaintiffs continuing benefits on the basis that the prior judicial rulings of the unconstitutionality of Sec. 115 controlled the claims. In view of the significance of this issue common to both cases, this Court has consolidated the defendants' appeals. In both cases, we now reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with our analysis of the effect of the Eastway ruling on compensation claims pending at the time of its decision.

[183 MICHAPP 5]

I. The Common Issue: Whether the holding in

Eastway v Eisenga should be accorded retroactive

application.

Section 115 of the workers' compensation legislation severely curtails the eligibility of agricultural workers for workers' compensation benefits by imposing requirements of minimum terms of employment more restrictive than those applicable to nonagricultural workers. More specifically, unlike nonagricultural employees, if plaintiffs, under the strict terms of Sec. 115(d), are to qualify for full benefits as agricultural workers, they must make additional showings that: (1) they were paid hourly wages or salaries, not on a piecework basis, and (2) they were employed for at least thirty-five hours per week for thirteen consecutive weeks during the preceding fifty-two-week period. If the injured worker is unable to meet the terms of Sec. 115(d), he may turn to Sec. 115(e), which provides medical (but no wage loss) benefits to agricultural workers under somewhat less restrictive terms. To qualify for subdivision (e) benefits, the worker must demonstrate that he worked thirty-five or more hours per week for the same employer for at least five consecutive weeks. ¹

Plaintiffs in the instant cases were awarded full [183 MICHAPP 6] benefits based on the assumption that Sec. 115(d), and (e) was unconstitutional.

In Gallegos v. Glaser Crandell Co., 388 Mich. 654, 202 N.W.2d 786 (1972), a majority of the Supreme Court held that Sec. 115, as applied to agricultural workers, violated equal protection because different treatment of agricultural workers vis-a-vis all other workers lacked a rational basis. In Stanton v. Lloyd Hammond Produce Farms, 400 Mich. 135, 253 N.W.2d 114 (1977), the holding in Gallegos was deemed to be fully retroactive on the ground that [183 MICHAPP 7] subdivision (d) was constitutionally void ab initio, thereby entitling the plaintiff agricultural worker to both wage loss and medical benefits.

This state of the law was applied by the WCAB in the instant cases. In Sellers v. Hauch, the date of injury was August 16, 1979. In Casarez v. Brown & Brown Farms, the date of injury was September 30, 1977. Eastway, released January 17, 1985, completely rearranged the prior state of the law by upholding the constitutionality of Sec. 115(d), thereby breathing new life into the more stringent eligibility provisions specific to agricultural workers. The instant cases were pending before the WCAB at the time of the Eastway decision. The WCAB advised in its opinion in Casarez that the resultant change in the law was without prior intimation by the Supreme Court, coming as a complete surprise to that part of the legal profession devoted to the practice of workers' compensation law.

All defendants rely on Stanton, supra, to support their argument for a retroactive application of Eastway's effective reinstatement of Sec. 115(d). In holding that the declaration of Sec. 115's unconstitutionality in Gallegos was to be retroactively applied to workplace injuries prior in time, the Court reasoned that an unconstitutional statute was a complete nullity dating from the time of its enactment. From this proposition, defendants in the cases at bar argue that it follows that the judicial recognition in Eastway of the newly discovered constitutionality of Sec. 115 is likewise entitled to fully retroactive judicial enforcement.

The Stanton decision disavowed the usual retroactivity/prospectivity analysis because it perceived the constitutional dimensions of the Gallegos holding to be of a different tenor than judicial revisions of the common law:

[183 MICHAPP 8] Defendants claim that Williams v. Detroit, 364 Mich 231; 111 N.W.2d 1 (1961),[ ²] and Parker v. Port Huron Hospital, 361 Mich 1; 105 N.W.2d 1 (1960),[ ³] support their argument that Gallegos should be applied prospectively. However, these two cases are clearly distinguishable from Gallegos in that they involve the overruling of established common-law doctrines rather than the constitutional declaration with respect to the validity of a statute. The prospective-retroactive issue is relevant in situations where a previously valid common-law doctrine or prior judicial rule of constitutional interpretation is being abandoned. Such situations are analogous to the amendment or repeal of existing statutes by the Legislature. However, in the instant case we are concerned with the question of whether an unconstitutional statute is to be given any effect, and thus, Williams and Parker are inapposite. [Stanton, supra, 400 Mich. pp. 145-146, 253 N.W.2d 114.]

However, reading the opinion in its entirety puts the foregoing into perspective. The principle adopted in Stanton is not to be applied per se. The Court noted that "certain factual circumstances might warrant the retroactive application of an unconstitutional statute." Id., p. 147, 253 N.W.2d 114. Those circumstances encompass notions of hardship and unfairness to those parties who have relied to their detriment on the prior, established state of the law. The Court in Stanton further concluded that overriding concerns of fairness dictated that the benefit of retroactive application be given to those [183 MICHAPP 9] migrant workers who would otherwise be precluded from workers' compensation. Read in its entirety, the reasoning of Stanton permits a flexible application of a change in constitutional doctrine, although constitutional considerations may favor retroactivity in order to cure the deprivation of the plaintiff and others similarly situated. As such, we do not believe that Stanton compels full retroactivity in every case where a statute's constitutionality is decided in a fashion different from the previous state of the law. Moreover, unlike Stanton, defendants here seek only a vindication of their statutory rights recently held to pass constitutional muster, not a vindication of previously denied constitutional rights, and their argument favoring retroactivity consequently carries considerably less force than those circumstances confronting the plaintiff in Stanton.

Aside from the constitutional and jurisprudential theories implicated by this judicial reinvigoration of a statutory nullity, we believe that the bench and bar, as a practical matter, viewed the Eastway decision as the onset of a new rule of law. One day the statute was a dead letter; the next day the statute was valid and controlling. Viewed in this light, the application of Eastway presents a question no different than any other change in the law effected by judicial pronouncement.

Retroactivity/prospectivity analysis admits a certain degree of judicial flexibility in order to alleviate hardships that could otherwise result, and this Court must take into account the entirety of consequences of a change in law. See Placek v. Sterling Heights, 405 Mich. 638, 665, 275 N.W.2d 511 (1979). "It is evident that there is no single rule of thumb which can be used to accomplish the...