Disability benefits under the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act (WDCA); “Disability”; MCL 418.301(4)(a); Independent medical examination (IME); MCL 418.385; The Michigan Compensation Appellate Commission’s (MCAC) authority to perform its own fact-finding; MCL 418.861a(14); Mudel v Great Atl & Pac Tea Co; Traceability of injuries & treatment; Staggs v Genesee Dist Library

Holding that the record in this matter was too incomplete to facilitate meaningful appellate review and that the Court of Appeals erred by adjudicating the case as a matter of law rather than remanding for factual development, the court vacated the opinion of the Court of Appeals and remanded to the MCAC for further proceedings. Plaintiff was working for defendant’s predecessor when she was injured at work in 1995. She was prescribed opioid medication and eventually became dependent on it. She began receiving disability benefits in 1996, but defendant discontinued her benefits after a 2015 IME. She applied for reinstatement of her benefits, but the magistrate denied her claim, finding her loss of wage-earning capacity was not related to the original injury, but to her opioid dependency. The MCAC reversed, finding her opioid use was directly traceable to treatment for the injury. The Court of Appeals then reversed the MCAC, finding Staggs was “inapplicable because plaintiff’s ‘use of opioids was part of ongoing treatment over several years and because this case concerns whether’” she was entitled to continue receiving benefits in 2015, the injury-treatment examination “must be viewed under the circumstances that existed in 2015.” But the court found the record “too incomplete to facilitate meaningful” appellate review, noting the MCAC “did not explain what the factual support was for finding that plaintiff was disabled[.]” The MCAC concluded that plaintiff’s opioid use precluded her from the workforce “without explaining whether the experts’ conclusions were equivalent or whether they could be reconciled.” In addition, it “did not support its conclusion that any limitation here ‘result[ed] from a personal injury or work-related disease’” with factual findings, “either those made by the magistrate or pursuant to its own review of the record.” Meanwhile, the magistrate “did not make sufficient findings for either the MCAC or the judiciary to determine whether there was legal error in its determination that plaintiff was no longer entitled to benefits, and the MCAC did not supplement those deficient findings.” Thus, the Court of Appeals “erred by deciding this case as a matter of law” as further administrative proceedings were needed.

Justice Viviano, concurring, wrote separately to explain his view that on remand the MCAC or the magistrate should consider “whether plaintiff had an affirmative duty to seek reasonable treatment for her opioid addiction and, if so, whether the failure to do so broke the chain of causation such that her ongoing opioid addiction is no longer traceable to her 1995 workplace injury.”

Justice Bernstein, concurring, agreed fully with the majority, but wrote separately because “neither the language of the relevant statutes nor the language of the applicable administrative rules provides sufficient instruction about how to properly adjudicate this issue.”

Justice Cavanagh, joined by Justice Welch, also concurring, agreed with the majority that a remand to the MCAC for additional factual findings was necessary for judicial review, but wrote separately “to describe in greater detail why the factual findings of the magistrate and the MCAC were insufficient and to provide guidance as to what factual findings are required on remand.”