Chief Justice Dethmers,, concurring, wrote “Where a statutory provision is re-enacted without change in language, it must be presumed that the action was taken in the light of prior judicial construction placed upon it and with the intent to adopt such construction. When the Supreme Court has placed an interpretation on a statute over a considerable period of years it may indulge in the judicial assumption that the legislature has been content with that interpretation because of its failure to exercise its independent prerogative to restate the provision.” [Citations omitted.]
How later courts described this case
- Chief Justice Dethmers,, concurring, wrote “Where a statutory provision is re-enacted without change in language, it must be presumed that the action was taken in the light of prior judicial construction placed upon it and with the intent to adopt such construction. When the Supreme Court has placed an interpretation on a statute over a considerable period of years it may indulge in the judicial assumption that the legislature has been content with that interpretation because of its failure to exercise its independent prerogative to restate the provision.” [Citations omitted.]
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Kelly, J.
(concurring). Beltinck v. Mt. Pleasant State Home and Training School, 346 Mich 494 (September, 1956), presented only one question, namely: “Was the injury sustained by plaintiff an accidental injury compensable under part 2 of the workmen’s compensation act?”
In writing to affirm the award of the commission (award affirmed by divided court) I defined the term accident as used in the compensation act, as follows:
1. The expression “accident” is used in the popular and ordinary sense as denoting an unlooked for mishap or an untoward event which is not expected or designed.
2. The word “accident” denotes something unexpectedly taking place not according to the usual course of things; an unusual or unexpected result attending the operation or performance of a usual or necessary act or event; something happening by chance; a mishap.
*634 3. The statute contemplates that an accidental injury may result by mere mischance; that accidental injury may be due to carelessness, not wilful, to fatigue, and to the effect of voluntary action.
I reiterate in this opinion what I stated in the Beltinclc Case, supra, and believe that the principles there set forth are re-established in the present appeal, as disclosed by the following quotations from opinions filed by 4 of my associates:
Justice Black : “The word ‘accident,’ as employed in the workmen’s compensation act, means ‘an unexpected result attending the operation or performance of a usual or necessary act or event.’ ”
Chief Justice Dethmers: “I would affirm the award, with costs to plaintiff, on the ground that she has suffered a disability resulting from a personal injury which arose out of and in the course of her employment and which, therefore, should be held to be compensable under the 1943 amendment, even though not occasioned' by accident or fortuitous event.” ■
Justice 'Edwards : “There is no longer a requirement that ‘an accident’ or ‘a fortuitous’ event (this Court’s previous definition of ‘accident’) be proven as a condition precedent for recovery of workmen’s compensation for a single-event personal injury which arises out of and during the course of employment.”
Justice- Smith : “If the result was unanticipated and unexpected the result-was as ‘accidental’ in legal effect as in ordinary speech. * * * The act authorizes ■ compensation for accidents suffered at work, and the word ‘accident,’ after the 1943 amendments, comprehending a personal injury due to a *635 single event, includes both the unexpected cause and the unexpected result.”
Affirmed. Costs to appellee. ■
Voelker, J., took no part in the decision of this case.