Opinion
ORDER
On order of the Court, the application for leave to appeal is considered, and it is DENIED, because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.
LEVIN, J., states as follows:
I would hold in administrative abeyance for Woody v. Cello-Foil Products, No. 99284, argued as 2/October 1995, with a view to remanding to a magistrate for reconsideration in light of Gardner v. Van Buren Public Schools, 445 Mich. 23, 517 N.W.2d 1 (1994).
I
On October 14, 1987, plaintiff suffered a back injury at work. He was treated and evaluated a number of times. Defendant successfully contested plaintiff's physical disability; the magistrate agreed the back injury had healed by September, 1991. The magistrate found, however, that plaintiff was also suffering from depression that resulted from the back injury. Therefore, psychiatric benefits were to continue.
Defendant appealed, and the WCAC reversed the magistrate's decision with respect to psychiatric disability. This was appealed, and the Court of Appeals remanded for further consideration in light of Gardner, and requested the WCAC to elaborate on its conclusion that there was not a sufficient connection between plaintiff's psychiatric condition and his back injury from work. The WCAC, on remand, again held there was not a sufficient connection, and, in an eighteen-page opinion, denied plaintiff's claim. The Court of Appeals denied leave to appeal.
II
Plaintiff contends that the magistrate clearly intended that he receive worker's compensation benefits on the basis of his physical injury for at least some of the time between his injury on October 14, 1987, and the decision mailed October 16, 1991. The magistrate did not rule specifically when the physical injury had healed because the mental disability he found made such a determination irrelevant. The WCAC reversed the magistrate, but did not provide guidance regarding how benefits were to be paid.
This case should be remanded to the magistrate for further proceedings to enter an award for the period in question subject to such other arguments as the parties may wish to advance.
III
The plaintiff claims a second error in the WCAC's reversal of the magistrate's finding of mental disability. Plaintiff argues that the magistrate found plaintiff's expert credible and disbelieved some of the conclusions of the defendant's doctors, particularly because the defendant appeared to be engaging in "doctor shopping." This argument ignores that the magistrate did not decide this case under the Gardner totality of the circumstances test, because it was decided two years before Gardner.
The Court of Appeals remanded to the WCAC to reconsider in light of Gardner, but did not suggest that the WCAC also remand to the magistrate for factual findings. The WCAC analysis of the facts on remand was lengthy and did try to give some deference to the magistrate's findings. The WCAC, though, did not believe that the magistrate had applied the law properly to the facts and sought to fully analyze the record to determine if the mental disability was significantly related to the physical disability.
A fundamental issue presented, or at least implicated in Woody is whether all factual findings should be made initially by a magistrate. In Woody, the question arises, or would arise, if the Court concludes that the magistrate's findings of fact are inadequate. Then, the question is whether in such a case the WCAC can review the record and make its own findings, or rather should remand to the magistrate to do so.
In this case, it having been decided that the case should be reconsidered in light of Gardner, the remand possibly should have been to the magistrate and not the WCAC. Thus, the Court of Appeals may have erred in remanding to the WCAC, rather than the magistrate, to reconsider in light of Woody.