Thomason v. WCAC Contour Fabricators, Inc.

• Decision Date: 02 April 2003
• Docket Number: Docket No. 241035.
• Citation: 662 N.W.2d 51,255 Mich. App. 121
• Parties: Patricia THOMASON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WCAC CONTOUR FABRICATORS, INC., St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Company, Select Office Systems, and Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

662 N.W.2d 51

255 Mich. App. 121

Patricia THOMASON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. WCAC CONTOUR FABRICATORS, INC., St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance Company, Select Office Systems, and Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, Defendants-Appellees.

Docket No. 241035.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted December 4, 2002, at Lansing.

Decided January 17, 2003, at 9:05 a.m.

Released for Publication April 2, 2003.

Hurlburt, Tsiros, Allweil & Perez, P.C., (by John T. Tsiros), Saginaw, for the plaintiff.

Humphrey, Hannon, Moriarity & Schoener, P.C., (by Timothy P. Moriarity and Denise L. Clemmons), Troy, for Contour Fabricators, Inc., and St. Paul Property & Casualty Insurance Company.

Before: NEFF, P.J., and HOEKSTRA and O'CONNELL, JJ.

NEFF, P.J.

This case is before us on remand from the Supreme Court for consideration as on leave granted.¹ Plaintiff appeals the decision of the Worker's Compensation Appellate Commission reversing the magistrate's open award of benefits. We reverse and reinstate the magistrate's award.

I

Plaintiff sustained a disabling nerve injury when blood was drawn from her arm during a medical examination at her place of employment. The examination was required for plaintiff to receive additional life insurance benefits. The magistrate found that plaintiff was credible; the medical testimony established that she suffered from reflex sympathetic dystrophy and that plaintiff suffered a disabling injury arising out of and in the course of her employment. An open award of benefits was entered.

The WCAC reversed, ruling that while M.C.L. § 418.301(3) establishes a presumption that an injury sustained on an employer's premises is in the course of employment, it does not create a presumption that the injury arises out of employment. The WCAC went on to hold that because it found that the activity in which plaintiff sustained her injury did not benefit the employer, the injury therefore did not arise out of plaintiff's employment.

This Court's review of a decision of the WCAC is limited. If there is any evidence supporting the WCAC's factual findings, and if the WCAC did not misapprehend its administrative appellate role in reviewing decisions of the magistrate, then the courts must treat the WCAC's factual findings as conclusive. Mudel v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 462 Mich. 691, 710-711, 614 N.W.2d 607 (2000). This Court reviews de novo questions of law, and a decision of the WCAC is subject to reversal if it is based on erroneous legal reasoning or the wrong legal framework. DiBenedetto v. West Shore Hosp., 461 Mich. 394, 401-402, 605 N.W.2d 300 (2000).

II

The WCAC clearly engaged in erroneous legal reasoning when it determined that plaintiff's injury did not arise out of her employment. An employee who receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of employment by an employer who is subject to the act at the time of the injury, shall be paid compensation. MCL 418.301(1). An employee is entitled to compensation where the nexus between the employment and the injury is sufficient to conclude that the injury was a circumstance of employment. Illes v. Jones Transfer Co. (On Remand), 213 Mich.App. 44, 51, 539 N.W.2d 382 (1995).

MCL 418.301(3) provides in relevant part:

An employee going to or from his or her work, while on the premises where the employee's work is to be performed, and within a reasonable time before and after his or her working hours, is presumed to be in the course of his or her employment. Notwithstanding this presumption, an injury incurred in the pursuit of an activity the major purpose of which is social or recreational is not covered under this act.

It is undisputed that plaintiff's injury occurred on work premises and falls within the ambit of M.C.L. § 418.301(3). The WCAC essentially held that plaintiff's injury did not arise in the course of her employment because the activity that caused the injury did not benefit the employer. This holding was error as a matter of law on two bases: first, because it created a requirement not found in the statute, i.e., that an injury incurred on the employer's premises must stem from activity that benefits the employer for the injury to be deemed to arise in the course of employment; and, second, because it concluded that the activity did not benefit the employer.

A

Nothing will be read into a clear statute that is not within the manifest intention of the Legislature as derived from the language of the statute itself. Roberts v. Mecosta Co. Gen. Hosp., 466 Mich. 57, 63, 642 N.W.2d 663 (2002). The courts cannot judicially legislate by adding language to a statute. Empire Iron Mining Partnership v. Orhanen, 455 Mich. 410, 421, 565 N.W.2d 844 (1997); In re Wayne Co. Prosecutor, 232 Mich.App. 482, 486, 591 N.W.2d 359 (1998).

In requiring that a plaintiff show a benefit to the employer for an injury incurred on the employer's premises to be deemed to arise...