U.S. District Courts Eastern District of Michigan; Published
Judge Feikens; Reported Opinion
Official Federal Reporter Citation: 475 F Supp 891; Link to Opinion
STATUTORY INDEXING:
Standards for Deductibility of State and Federal Governmental Benefits [§3109(1)]
State Workers Compensation Benefits [§3109(1)]
TOPICAL INDEXING:
Workers Disability Compensation Act (MCL 418.1, et seq.)
CASE SUMMARY:
In this reported Opinion, Judge Feikens made several different rulings regarding the offset of workers' compensation benefits against no-fault wage loss benefits. Among other things, he held (1) the offset of governmental benefits against no-fault benefits under §3109(1) is constitutional, (2) workers' compensation payments should only be offset to the extent they are duplicative of the claim for no-fault benefits; thus, medical payments made by the workers' comp carrier cannot be setoff against no-fault wage loss benefits. Moreover, workers' comp wage loss benefits cannot be offset against no-fault wage loss benefits which are claimed for a different period than the period in which the camp benefits were paid, (3) with regard to the workers' compensation redemption of all past, presents and future wage and medical claims, it is only the amount required to be paid in wage loss benefits that can be offset against the no-fault wage claim, rather than the undetermined portion of the redemption amount that was actually paid.