Sweatt v. Department of Corrections

• Decision Date: 12 December 2001
• Docket Number: Docket No. 226194.
• Citation: 247 Mich. App. 555,637 N.W.2d 811
• Parties: Ronald G. SWEATT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

637 N.W.2d 811

247 Mich. App. 555

Ronald G. SWEATT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 226194.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted March 7, 2001, at Lansing.

Decided September 25, 2001, at 9:10 a.m.

Released for Publication December 12, 2001.

Kelman, Loria, Will, Harvey & Thompson (by James P. Harvey), Detroit, for Ronald G. Sweatt.

Jennifer M. Granholm, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, and George H. Weller and Charles Jones, Assistant Attorneys General, for the Department of Corrections.

Before: GRIFFIN, P.J., and NEFF and WHITE, JJ.

NEFF, J.

In this worker's compensation case, we must decide whether a provision of the statutory scheme governing the operation of defendant Department of Corrections (DOC), M.C.L. § 791.205a, relieves defendant of its responsibility as an employer to pay disability benefits to plaintiff under the Worker's Disability Compensation Act (WDCA), M.C.L. § 418.101 et seq. I conclude that defendant is not relieved of its responsibility to pay benefits under the WDCA and so affirm the majority decision of the Worker's Compensation Appellate Commission (WCAC), affirming en banc the magistrate's open award of benefits, although for reasons different from those relied on by the WCAC.

I

The facts concerning plaintiff's injury and disability are uncontroverted. Plaintiff was working as a corrections officer and was injured while attempting to physically separate and restrain inmates involved in a fight. The injury required that surgery be performed on his right knee. At the time of the trial of this matter, November 18, 1998, the parties stipulated that plaintiff continued to be disabled as a result of the work-related injury incurred on December 8, 1989.

At the time of plaintiff's injury, defendant maintained a policy that precluded a return to work of any employee who was not one hundred percent fit for duty as a corrections officer. In other words, there was no light duty or "favored work"¹ available for injured corrections officers who were not fully recovered from their injuries.

Worker's compensation benefits were voluntarily paid until January 12, 1995, when plaintiff was incarcerated as a result of a drug conviction. On the authority of M.C.L. § 418.361(1), payment of benefits was suspended while plaintiff was incarcerated. At about the same time, defendant rescinded its one hundred percent fit-for-duty policy and began to offer light duty or favored work to injured corrections officers who were not fully fit to return to work as corrections officers. Plaintiff was never offered work by defendant after this change in policy.

During his incarceration and after his parole on June 1, 1996, plaintiff worked at various jobs that accommodated his injury-related limitations on stair climbing, standing, and lifting. All indications in the record suggest that plaintiff was a willing and able worker within his limitations. When plaintiff was released from prison, the statutory prohibition of § 361 no longer applied, that is, under the WDCA plaintiff was again entitled to disability benefits.

Effective March 25, 1996, the Legislature amended the DOC statute to prohibit defendant from hiring felons. M.C.L. § 791.205a. The statute specifically provides:

(1) Beginning on the effective date of this section, an individual who has been convicted of a felony, or who is subject to any pending felony charges, shall not be employed by or appointed to a position in the department.

* * *

(3) This section does not apply to a person employed by or appointed to a position in the department before the effective date of this section.

Plaintiff's petition for reinstatement of benefits, after the § 361 bar was lifted on his release from prison, was denied by defendant on the basis of the DOC statutory amendment, and the petition went to trial before the magistrate, who granted an open award of benefits on the basis of an ongoing right knee disability.

Defendant appealed to the WCAC, which heard the matter en banc and remanded it to the magistrate for an additional finding of fact concerning an offer of reasonable employment. The magistrate filed an opinion on remand, and the case returned to the WCAC, where defendant claimed that it should be relieved from further worker's compensation liability because of plaintiff's criminal conduct. A four-member majority of the WCAC, sitting again en banc, disagreed with defendant and affirmed the magistrate's award. Defendant appeals the decision of the WCAC by leave granted.

II

Where facts are not in dispute and statutory construction is the only question for appellate review, the standard of review is de novo. Ramon Perez v. Keeler Brass Co., 461 Mich. 602, 608, 608 N.W.2d 45 (2000).

III

Recent decisions of our Supreme Court acknowledge that permanent forfeiture of disability benefits payable under the WDCA is contrary to legislative intent where the statutory provision at issue references a "period" of time. For instance, where an employee refuses an offer of reasonable employment, the WDCA operates to suspend disability benefits, M.C.L. § 418.301(5)(a):

If an employee receives a bona fide offer of reasonable employment from the previous employer, another employer, or through the Michigan employment security commission and the employee refuses that employment without good and reasonable cause, the employee shall be considered to have voluntarily removed himself or herself from the work force and is no longer entitled to any wage loss benefits under this act during the period of such refusal.

Benefits may be suspended only during the period of refusal. Russell v. Whirlpool Financial Corp., 461 Mich. 579, 586-587, 608 N.W.2d 52 (2000). At the point the employee ends the refusal, benefits must be reinstated. Id. at 587-588, 608 N.W.2d 52. This is so even if the employee is terminated for "just cause," but has been employed in favored work for less than one hundred weeks. Id. at 581, 586, 608 N.W.2d 52. Likewise, where the employee ends a period of unreasonable refusal of reasonable employment, and the employer reneges on its earlier offer of reasonable work, disability benefits must be reinstated. McJunkin v. Cellasto Plastic Corp., 461 Mich. 590, 592, 599-600, 608 N.W.2d 57 (2000). As pointed out in McJunkin, the WDCA does not provide for permanent forfeiture of benefits as a result of unreasonably refusing an offer of reasonable employment. Id. at 598, 608 N.W.2d 57; see also Ramon Perez, supra at 611, 608 N.W.2d 45.

In Russell, McJunkin, and Ramon Perez, the Supreme Court determined that the statutory language "during the period of such refusal" indicated a time of limited duration, reflecting a temporary suspension of benefits, which the employee could end at any time in the future. Ramon Perez, supra at 613-614, 608 N.W.2d 45; McJunkin, supra at 597-598, 608 N.W.2d 57; Russell, supra at 587-588, 608 N.W.2d 52. The Supreme Court emphasized that in determining whether benefits forfeited by a refusal to accept reasonable employment are to be reinstated, the focus is on the actions of the employee, as evidenced by the language in subsection 301(5)(a). Ramon Perez, supra at 613-614, 608 N.W.2d 45; McJunkin, supra at 597, 608 N.W.2d 57; Russell, supra at 587-588, 608 N.W.2d 52. While those three cases interpreted a section of the WDCA different than the one at issue here, their reasoning is instructive and applicable to the issues in this case.

A

The WDCA provides for suspension of disability benefits when the employee is unable to obtain or perform work because of imprisonment or commission of a crime:

[A]n employer shall not be liable for compensation under section 351, 371(1), or this subsection for such periods of time that the employee is unable to obtain or perform work because of imprisonment or commission of a crime.

[M.C.L. § 418.361(1).]

There is no provision in § 361 or elsewhere in the WDCA for the permanent forfeiture of benefits because of imprisonment or commission of a crime, and plaintiff in this case cannot be said to be unable to obtain or perform work for these reasons.² As pointed out by the WCAC majority opinion, "plaintiff did not refuse employment, nor can his actions in committing a crime be viewed generally as a decision to withdraw from the workplace for those periods after he had served the appropriate amount of time in prison as punishment for his criminal misconduct." In other words, it was plaintiff's behavior that led to the suspension of his benefits, but plaintiff did everything necessary under the WDCA to restore his entitlement to benefits. Therefore, focusing on the conduct of plaintiff, and the statutory language referencing a period of limited duration, as Russell, McJunkin, and Ramon Perez instruct, it is clear that under the WDCA plaintiff is entitled to reinstatement of disability payments on the basis of his continued disability.

I assume solely for purposes of analysis that M.C.L. § 791.205a prevents defendant from hiring plaintiff,³ without reference to the availability within defendant of reasonable employment or the resumption of disability payments where there is no available reasonable employment: in other words, without reference to or recognition of the provisions of the WDCA. The argument is that the DOC statute operates to render reasonable employment unavailable to plaintiff, again, without reference to the WDCA.⁴ Defendant would apply this statutory provision to permanently deprive plaintiff of benefits otherwise payable under the WDCA. The WCAC disagreed, as do I, although for different reasons.

B

The WCAC decided this case on the narrow factual ground that defendant failed to prove that it would have offered plaintiff reasonable employment but for the statutory bar of M.C.L. § 791.205a(1). The WCAC accurately characterizes the record below: defendant presented the testimony of its return-to-work specialist, who...