Michigam Supreme Court To Hear Arguments Of '05-'06 Term
LANSING, MI, April 28, 2006 – Where a woman was injured while helping her husband on the job, and she sued his employer in state circuit court, was that court authorized to determine whether the exclusive remedy of the state’s worker’s compensation statute applied to her? That is among the questions that the Michigan Supreme Court will consider in the final scheduled oral arguments of its 2005-2006 term.
In Van Til v Environmental Resources Management, a supervisor agreed to let the plaintiff, who was not an employee, assist her husband with his work; her hours were to be credited to her husband. When she sued her husband’s employer for injuries she suffered during the work, the employer moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the plaintiff’s exclusive remedy was under the Worker’s Compensation Disability Act (WDCA) and that the matter should be addressed in a worker’s compensation proceeding. The trial court and Michigan Court of Appeals both agreed that the trial court did not have jurisdiction over the case because the WDCA provided the exclusive remedy for the wife’s claims. The question before the Supreme Court is whether the trial court even had the authority to decide this initial jurisdictional question.
The question of how a trial court’s jurisdiction is limited by the WDCA is also at issue in Jacobs v Technidisc, et al., which the Supreme Court will also hear. In Jacobs, the plaintiff received worker’s compensation payments from his employer’s worker’s compensation carrier; when the plaintiff sued a third party for his injuries, the carrier intervened in the suit to seek reimbursement. That lawsuit was resolved by a consent judgment, in which the carrier agreed to continue payments to the plaintiff at a set amount. Ten years later, when the plaintiff began receiving old age social security payments, the carrier reduced its payments by that amount. When the plaintiff went to court to enforce the consent judgment, the carrier objected, arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction to set the amount of worker’s compensation benefits. But the trial court disagreed, ordering the carrier to resume payments at the set amount; the Court of Appeals declined to hear the carrier’s appeal, citing jurisdictional issues.
Also before the Court is 46th Circuit Trial Court v County of Crawford, et al., which involves a funding dispute between the circuit court and two of the three counties under its jurisdiction. A split Court of Appeals panel held in part that the circuit court could sue the counties to obtain adequate funding, and that the court’s requested budget, including a new employee benefits package, was reasonable and necessary. Read more at courts.michigan.gov
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