New Ruling Protects Workers' Comp Gains

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 | 0

The Detroit News

Michigan has significantly improved its workers' compensation costs compared with other states, and a new ruling by the Michigan Supreme Court will protect these gains.

Ironically, an arm of state government -- the Michigan Workers Compensation Appellate Commission -- had been pushing the state in another direction until the Supreme Court stepped in.

Workers' compensation is paid to employees who are injured on the job. Many claims are promptly paid without challenge, and both the number and costs of claims have been declining in recent years.

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But if there are disputes, workers and employers go through an administrative hearing process that leads ultimately to the appellate courts. This is a huge expense for employers. In 2005, Michigan employers paid $1.5 billion in lost wages and medical costs.

For decades, Michigan was known for lax standards in defining and awarding disability benefits, driving up costs for employers. State lawmakers went through several rounds of legislation to create more of a balance between workers' claims and employer liability.

And in 2002, the state Supreme Court issued a ruling essentially holding that an injured worker who can do a different job at comparable pay isn't necessarily totally disabled. The prior standard had been that workers who could not return to their old jobs were eligible for long-term disability payments.

As Justice Stephen J. Markman noted in a recent ruling, there has been a tendency by some courts and the Workers Compensation Appellate Commission, the highest level of the administrative process, to revert to the prior standard despite the high court's 2002 ruling and state law.

In 2006, the Workers Compensation Commission issued a defiant opinion that in effect challenged the Supreme Court's 2002 ruling. The high court's majority has now reiterated its standard and rebuked the 2006 administrative ruling.

Certainly, injured workers deserve fair treatment and just compensation if they cannot work because of an on-the-job injury. But the system should not work to discourage them from returning to a job they're physically capable of performing.

This ruling should affirm that principle.

<i>This editorial originally appeared in The Detroit News on Tuesday, June 17.</i>