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Rangel v. Ralston Purina Co.11/2/2001
FOR PUBLICATION
9:15 a.m.
In these consolidated cases, defendant Ralston Purina Company appeals by leave granted from orders of the Worker's Compensation Appellate Commission (WCAC), sitting en banc, affirming the decisions of the magistrate to award benefits to plaintiffs. These cases share one common issue of first impresssion, to wit, whether the amounts defendant paid to plaintiffs pursuant to a severance agreement should be credited against defendant's worker's compensation liability obligation, if any, pursuant to § 354 of the Worker's Disability Compensation Act (WDCA), MCL 418.354, as part of a "wage continuation plan."
We hold that the amounts should not be credited against defendant's worker's compensation obligation. We affirm the WCAC's decisions in Docket Nos. 227266, 227267 and 227268, and reverse its decision in Docket No. 227269.
I.
Defendant manufactures breakfast cereal. Each of the four employees in these cases, Rosita Rangel, Mattie Cope, Delores Haddix, and Carolyn Greenman, worked for defendant in various capacities at its Battle Creek operation. In 1996, defendant sought to downsize the company and reduce the size of its workforce and entered into a bargaining process with the union representing its employees.
The agreement resulting from the bargaining process provided that those individuals volunteering to take part in a severance agreement would receive a lump sum of money. The lump sum would not be based on an individual's weekly hourly wage, but on the weekly "plant average straight time hourly wage of $19.27 per hour" multiplied by the individual's number of years of employment, with a maximum individual lump sum payment of $25,000. Participants would also receive a payment of either $1,000 or $2,000 for the cost of financial planning, job retraining, relocation or career counseling, although the participants could use the money however they saw fit. In exchange for the lump sum payment, participants expressly agreed to "separate from the payroll" and "relinquish all recall and future employment rights with the Company." The severance agreement did not contain the phrase "wage continuation." The severance agreement stated that " he Company agrees to provide Worker's Compensation benefits according to law."
The agreement was offered to employees in July 1996 and February 1997, with various time frames for acceptance based on seniority. Individuals who did not accept the severance agreement would be permanently laid off in March 1997. Each of the four plaintiffs in these cases signed the severance agreement, and, in each of the four cases, defendant subsequently asserted that the amounts it paid to plaintiffs pursuant to the severance agreement should be credited against its worker's compensation liability obligation pursuant to § 354. We briefly state the facts of the cases at bar, keeping in mind that we are directed by constitutional and statutory provisions to treat the WCAC's findings of fact as conclusive, in the absence of fraud. Mudel v Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co, 462 Mich 691, 701; 614 NW2d 607 (2000).
Docket No. 227266
Rangel claimed to have suffered a work-related injury and stopped working for defendant in June 1995, although she returned to work for defendant for one day in June 1996. She signed the severance agreement in August 1996 and applied for worker's compensation benefits in December 1996. The magistrate held that Rangel had suffered a work-related disability and that benefits should be awarded accordingly.
On appeal, a majority of the WCAC agreed, holding that " n this record, the link between plaintiff's ongoing disabilit
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