Levin, J.
This wrongful death action was commenced by Lucille R. Allen, as personal representative of her deceased husband, Ray F. Allen, after she had, as his widow, entered into a redemption agreement respecting Garden Orchards, Inc.’s, liability under the workers’ compensation act. The Court of Appeals held that Lucille R. Allen’s "acceptance of the redemption agreement” equitably estopped her from maintaining this action in tort.1 We reverse.
[420]*420I
Ray F. Allen was fatally injured while working on a Garden Orchards’ farm. Lucille R. Allen sought, as his widow, workers’ compensation benefits. Auto-Owners Insurance Company, the workers’ compensation insurer for Garden Orchards, defended on the basis that the "deceased was not an employee of Garden Orchards, Inc., but was instead an independent contractor.” Garden Orchards had earlier asserted that Ray F. Allen was not an employee, but rather was a "self-employed contractor.”
The redemption agreement was entered into between Lucille R. Allen, widow of Ray F. Allen, Garden Orchards, employer, and Auto-Owners Insurance Company, insurance carrier. The agreement was on Bureau of Workers’ Compensation form 18 which provides that "all agreements to redeem liability must be submitted on blanks furnished by the bureau.” (Emphasis added.)
The redemption agreement provided that Lucille R. Allen, Garden Orchards, and the insurer "represented]” that Ray F. Allen was an employee of Garden Orchards, that Garden Orchards was the employer, and that the "[e]mployer has agreed to pay and employee’s widow has agreed to accept $20,000.00 in full and final settlement of any and all liability the employer might have for weekly Workmen’s Compensation beneñts . . . because of any and all injuries arising out of and in the course of the employment that said employee might have sustained during his lifetime.” (Emphasis added.)
The settlement embodied in the redemption agreement was considered by a workers’ compensation magistrate at a hearing during the course of which Lucille R. Allen testified. A redemption [421]*421order, also on a bureau form, was entered which recited that the magistrate had reviewed the redemption agreement, had concluded that it should be approved, and had "ordered that said agreement to redeem the employer’s entire liability for workers’ disability compensation beneñts” on payment of $20,000 is approved.2 (Emphasis added.)
This action was subsequently commenced by [422]*422Lucille R. Allen as personal representative of her husband’s estate. She alleged that her husband had been retained by Garden Orchards as an independent contractor to perform services on a farm owned and operated by Garden Orchards and that, while performing such services, he was fatally injured, and that the proximate cause of the accident and fatal injury was the negligence of Garden Orchards.
Garden Orchards moved for summary disposition, asserting that Ray F. Allen was an employee of Garden Orchards and that a redemption order had been entered whereby Garden Orchards’ "entire liability for the injuries sustained” by Ray F. Allen had been redeemed. Garden Orchards al[423]*423leged that the redemption agreement and order barred the instant action and constituted a "release, accord, settlement and satisfaction . . . The circuit judge granted summary disposition.
In affirming the summary disposition, the Court of Appeals cited its decisions in Burgess v Holloway Construction Co, 123 Mich App 505; 332 NW2d 584 (1983), and Johnson v Harper-Grace Hosp, 92 Mich App 202, 204; 284 NW2d 520 (1979).
ii
In Jordan v C A Roberts Co, 379 Mich 235, 246; 150 NW2d 792 (1967), this Court declared that a redemption order constituted "a final and conclusive determination of the liability” of the employer, and precluded maintenance of a wrongful death action against the employer by a widow as the personal representative of her husband’s estate. The Court predicated its decision upon "the nature of the remedy under the workmen’s compensation statute rather than upon an estoppel . . . .’’Id. at 242.3
The Court said that a redemption order barred an action against the employer although there had not been "a contested adjudication of rights,” id. at 244, and that to rule otherwise would be contrary to a provision of the act stating that when an [424]*424employee or his dependents elect to receive benefits under the act, they thereby release the employer of all claims or demands at law arising from such injury:
If the employee, or his dependents, in case of his death, of any employer subject to the provisions of this act files any claim with, or accepts any payment from such employer, or any insurance company carrying such risks, or from the commissioner of insurance on account of personal injury, or makes any agreement, or submits any question to arbitration under this act, such action shall constitute a release to such employer of all claims or demands at law, if any, arising from such injury[4] [1948 CL 416.1.]
The Court said that an action would be barred5 if proceedings were had under the workers’ compensation act "resulting in a determination of jurisdiction” and that the unappealed order in the case then at bar, approving the redemption of the widow’s workers’ compensation claim, constituted "a final and conclusive determination of the liability” of the employer arising out of her husband’s death with the result that an action for wrongful death was barred.6 Jordan, supra at 246 (emphasis added). _
[425]*425The statutory provision, relied on in Jordan, 1948 CL 416.1, was repealed, two years after Jordan was decided when the workers’ compensation act of 1969 was enacted.7
Four years after Jordan was decided, this Court, in Bugg v Fairview Farms, Inc, 385 Mich 338, 344; 189 NW2d 291 (1971), held that a wrongful death action was not necessarily barred by a redemption order. Although Bugg was decided after the repeal of § 416.1, the redemption order had been entered in March, 1968, before the repeal.
The justice who wrote the opinion for the Court in Jordan wrote a dissent in Bugg in which he relied on § 416.1. He said that in his view the question presented was one of "choice of remedies between the wrongful death act and the Workmen’s Compensation Act,” that he read the language of § 416.1 as had the trial judge, and that once the provisions of § 416.1 "come into play, the Workmen’s Compensation Act remedy against the employer is exclusive.”8 Bugg, supra at 363-364 (Adams, J., dissenting). (Emphasis added.)
The majority said that the Court "need not determine the abstract question of whether an approval of a redemption agreement is a determination of the conditions of liability under the act by the compensation commission.” Id. at 351.
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Levin, J.
This wrongful death action was commenced by Lucille R. Allen, as personal representative of her deceased husband, Ray F. Allen, after she had, as his widow, entered into a redemption agreement respecting Garden Orchards, Inc.’s, liability under the workers’ compensation act. The Court of Appeals held that Lucille R. Allen’s "acceptance of the redemption agreement” equitably estopped her from maintaining this action in tort.1 We reverse.
[420]*420I
Ray F. Allen was fatally injured while working on a Garden Orchards’ farm. Lucille R. Allen sought, as his widow, workers’ compensation benefits. Auto-Owners Insurance Company, the workers’ compensation insurer for Garden Orchards, defended on the basis that the "deceased was not an employee of Garden Orchards, Inc., but was instead an independent contractor.” Garden Orchards had earlier asserted that Ray F. Allen was not an employee, but rather was a "self-employed contractor.”
The redemption agreement was entered into between Lucille R. Allen, widow of Ray F. Allen, Garden Orchards, employer, and Auto-Owners Insurance Company, insurance carrier. The agreement was on Bureau of Workers’ Compensation form 18 which provides that "all agreements to redeem liability must be submitted on blanks furnished by the bureau.” (Emphasis added.)
The redemption agreement provided that Lucille R. Allen, Garden Orchards, and the insurer "represented]” that Ray F. Allen was an employee of Garden Orchards, that Garden Orchards was the employer, and that the "[e]mployer has agreed to pay and employee’s widow has agreed to accept $20,000.00 in full and final settlement of any and all liability the employer might have for weekly Workmen’s Compensation beneñts . . . because of any and all injuries arising out of and in the course of the employment that said employee might have sustained during his lifetime.” (Emphasis added.)
The settlement embodied in the redemption agreement was considered by a workers’ compensation magistrate at a hearing during the course of which Lucille R. Allen testified. A redemption [421]*421order, also on a bureau form, was entered which recited that the magistrate had reviewed the redemption agreement, had concluded that it should be approved, and had "ordered that said agreement to redeem the employer’s entire liability for workers’ disability compensation beneñts” on payment of $20,000 is approved.2 (Emphasis added.)
This action was subsequently commenced by [422]*422Lucille R. Allen as personal representative of her husband’s estate. She alleged that her husband had been retained by Garden Orchards as an independent contractor to perform services on a farm owned and operated by Garden Orchards and that, while performing such services, he was fatally injured, and that the proximate cause of the accident and fatal injury was the negligence of Garden Orchards.
Garden Orchards moved for summary disposition, asserting that Ray F. Allen was an employee of Garden Orchards and that a redemption order had been entered whereby Garden Orchards’ "entire liability for the injuries sustained” by Ray F. Allen had been redeemed. Garden Orchards al[423]*423leged that the redemption agreement and order barred the instant action and constituted a "release, accord, settlement and satisfaction . . . The circuit judge granted summary disposition.
In affirming the summary disposition, the Court of Appeals cited its decisions in Burgess v Holloway Construction Co, 123 Mich App 505; 332 NW2d 584 (1983), and Johnson v Harper-Grace Hosp, 92 Mich App 202, 204; 284 NW2d 520 (1979).
ii
In Jordan v C A Roberts Co, 379 Mich 235, 246; 150 NW2d 792 (1967), this Court declared that a redemption order constituted "a final and conclusive determination of the liability” of the employer, and precluded maintenance of a wrongful death action against the employer by a widow as the personal representative of her husband’s estate. The Court predicated its decision upon "the nature of the remedy under the workmen’s compensation statute rather than upon an estoppel . . . .’’Id. at 242.3
The Court said that a redemption order barred an action against the employer although there had not been "a contested adjudication of rights,” id. at 244, and that to rule otherwise would be contrary to a provision of the act stating that when an [424]*424employee or his dependents elect to receive benefits under the act, they thereby release the employer of all claims or demands at law arising from such injury:
If the employee, or his dependents, in case of his death, of any employer subject to the provisions of this act files any claim with, or accepts any payment from such employer, or any insurance company carrying such risks, or from the commissioner of insurance on account of personal injury, or makes any agreement, or submits any question to arbitration under this act, such action shall constitute a release to such employer of all claims or demands at law, if any, arising from such injury[4] [1948 CL 416.1.]
The Court said that an action would be barred5 if proceedings were had under the workers’ compensation act "resulting in a determination of jurisdiction” and that the unappealed order in the case then at bar, approving the redemption of the widow’s workers’ compensation claim, constituted "a final and conclusive determination of the liability” of the employer arising out of her husband’s death with the result that an action for wrongful death was barred.6 Jordan, supra at 246 (emphasis added). _
[425]*425The statutory provision, relied on in Jordan, 1948 CL 416.1, was repealed, two years after Jordan was decided when the workers’ compensation act of 1969 was enacted.7
Four years after Jordan was decided, this Court, in Bugg v Fairview Farms, Inc, 385 Mich 338, 344; 189 NW2d 291 (1971), held that a wrongful death action was not necessarily barred by a redemption order. Although Bugg was decided after the repeal of § 416.1, the redemption order had been entered in March, 1968, before the repeal.
The justice who wrote the opinion for the Court in Jordan wrote a dissent in Bugg in which he relied on § 416.1. He said that in his view the question presented was one of "choice of remedies between the wrongful death act and the Workmen’s Compensation Act,” that he read the language of § 416.1 as had the trial judge, and that once the provisions of § 416.1 "come into play, the Workmen’s Compensation Act remedy against the employer is exclusive.”8 Bugg, supra at 363-364 (Adams, J., dissenting). (Emphasis added.)
The majority said that the Court "need not determine the abstract question of whether an approval of a redemption agreement is a determination of the conditions of liability under the act by the compensation commission.” Id. at 351. The majority continued that — contrary to the trial judge’s ruling, which had been based on §416.1, the parties by agreement had not resolved the meritorious issue, nor did they submit it to the referee for decision — and had reserved the question for determination in a pending lawsuit.9 Id. [426]*426The majority added that "[i]n order to be a bar, the adjudication must be taken and rendered upon the merits” and that "[p]arol evidence is admissible to ascertain whether a given question in issue was litigated, submitted and decided where the record is not conclusive and the issue of res judicata is raised.”10 Id. at 352.
Without adverting specifically to Jordan, the majority modified Jordan in stating:
The conditions of liability under the act are necessarily determined by the compensation department for the purpose only of approving a redemption agreement. But this does not necessarily adjudicate the issue for all purposes. [Bugg, supra at 352. Emphasis added.]
Also, again without specifically adverting to Jordan, but in apparent reference thereto, the majority added:
Just as a judgment by default admits the legality of the demand only for the purpose of the suit, so does an agreement of redemption admit the jurisdiction of the commission only for the purpose of approving the agreed payment. [Id. at 353. Emphasis added.]_
[427]*427The majority observed that § 416.1 had been repealed by the 1969 revision of the workers’ compensation act and had been replaced by § 831 of the 1969 act, which, said the majority, was the provision in the 1969 enactment comparable to § 416.1. Section 831 provides:
Neither the payment of compensation or the accepting of the same by the employee or his dependents shall be considered as a determination of the rights of the parties under this act. [MCL 418.831; MSA 17.237(831). Emphasis added.][11]
in
Under the original workers’ compensation act, the employer had an election whether to provide, and the employee had an election whether to seek or accept, workers’ compensation benefits as an [428]*428alternative to an action at law.12 Both the employer’s and employee’s election was eliminated over the years before Jordan or Bugg was decided.13 But, as sometimes occurs, the repealed premise— that there was an election or choice — died hard. In all events, the statutory provision, §416.1, relied on in Jordan, barring a law action, where the employee or his dependents elect to seek workers’ compensation benefits rather than to' sue at law, was repealed in 1969, and no longer has operative effect.
Consistent with § 831, providing that "[njeither the payment of compensation or the accepting of the same by the employee or his dependents shall be considered as a determination of the rights of the parties under this act” (emphasis added), this Court has ruled that admissions made at a redemption hearing may not, where the settlement "fell through,” be considered in subsequent proceedings. Farrell v Campbell, Wyant & Cannon Foundry Co, 392 Mich 344, 345; 220 NW2d 450 (1974). In so holding, this Court said that "the purpose of the [redemption] hearing is to pass on the propriety of the redemption rather than the legitimacy of the claim” Id. at 346. (Emphasis added.)
Pertinently to the question presented in the instant case, this Court, in holding that the "Second Injury Fund should not be subjected to a separate, independent hearing to determine whether the fund is liable for differential payments when the claimant and employer redeem all alleged potential employer liability by entering into a negotiated settlement where employer liability has been neither admitted nor adjudicated,” [429]*429declared that a redemption agreement "constitutes neither an admission nor an adjudication of employer liability.” White v Weinberger Builders, Inc, 397 Mich 23, 27, 34; 242 NW2d 427 (1976). (Emphasis added.) Similarly, in holding that a redemption agreement may be set aside on the ground of mutual mistake, this Court said that it does not regard "approval of a redemption agreement as a ñnding of fact nor an admission of liability.” Solo v Chrysler Corp (On Rehearing), 408 Mich 345, 350; 292 NW2d 438 (1980). (Emphasis added.)
The Court of Appeals thus erred in Johnson, supra at 207, on which the Court of Appeals relied in Burgess and in the instant case, in declaring that the redemption served "as a final adjudication of the rights of the parties in relation to this particular injury . . . ”14 (Emphasis added.) A redemption order does not, as set forth in White and [430]*430Solo, constitute an adjudication or a determination. Nor does the payment or acceptance of compensation constitute a "determination of the rights of the parties under” the act. MCL 418.831; MSA 17.237(831).
IV
Although the Court of Appeals ruled that Lucille R. Allen was equitably estopped from maintaining this action, no evidence was offered by Garden Orchards that any representation, admission, or silence of Lucille R. Allen induced it to believe any facts, or that it justifiably relied and acted on the belief that Ray F. Allen was an employee. It appears rather that Auto-Owners, the insurance carrier, decided to redeem its exposure and that Garden Orchards’ consent to the redemption was then obtained.
It has not been claimed, let alone shown, that Auto-Owners, in entering into the settlement, or that Garden Orchards in consenting to the settlement, obtained the agreement of Lucille R. Allen or her attorneys that the amount paid pursuant to the settlement would preclude maintenance of this action for wrongful death. A different question would be presented if Lucille R. Allen had agreed to accept the $20,000 in full settlement of all claims against Garden Orchards. Garden Orchards has not sought reformation of the settlement agreement.15
[431]*431While Lucille R. Allen did, indeed, obtain payment of $20,000 on the basis that her husband was an employee of Garden Orchards, Auto-Owners, by the same token, avoided the possible payment of a greater sum on the basis, in part, that he was not an employee, but rather an independent contractor. Equities run in both directions.
We agree with the signers of the dissenting opinion that "the absence of an adjudication does not necessarily preclude the availability of equitable estoppel.”16 While a party may assert inconsistent claims or defenses,17 where the other party concedes the validity of a claim or defense, and there is a disposition on that basis to the detriment of the other party, the doctrine of equitable estoppel may protect the other party from the reassertion of an inconsistent claim or defense, as set forth in Hassberger v General Builders’ Supply Co, 213 Mich 489, 492; 182 NW 27 (1921), relied on by the signers of the dissenting opinion._
[432]*432In Hassberger, the defendant had contended, in an action for specific performance, that there was not a valid contract between the defendant and the plaintiff, and, on that basis, the action was dismissed by the plaintiff In a subsequent action to recover the money paid under the alleged contract, the defendant claimed that there was a valid and enforceable contract. This Court affirmed the decision of the circuit court, directing a verdict for the plaintiff, on the basis that the defendant was estopped by his conduct, "by insisting in the former case that the contract was void to the disadvantage and expense to plaintiff . . . .” Id. (Emphasis added.) The Court observed that the defendant "succeeded in defeating an action for specific performance on the ground that no valid contract existed between it and the plaintiff.” Id. at 496. (Emphasis added.) The Court observed that if there were not a valid contract, then defendant had "some $3,750 of plaintiff’s money to which it had no right” and would not be permitted to assert that there was a valid contract. Id.
In the instant case, Lucille R. Allen did not "defeat” Garden Orchards in the workers’ compensation proceedings. There was a settlement. Neither party was defeated. Neither party prevailed. Money was indeed paid by Garden Orchards to Lucille R. Allen, but without any concession by either party regarding the correctness of the position asserted by the other. In contrast with Hassberger, supra at 490, Garden Orchards did not concede "that defendant’s position was well taken.”
In Hassberger, defendant’s counsel "dismissed the bill and brought this action to recover the money paid.” Id. This case would be similar if Garden Orchards’ counsel had conceded that Ray F. Allen was an employee and had consented to [433]*433the payment of full workers’ compensation benefits. Then, of course, Lucille R. Allen would be precluded from maintaining this action.
A redemption order approves a settlement. It does not purport to determine which of the competing factual assertions advanced by the parties is correct.
The redemption agreement, by its terms, constituted a settlement "of any and all liability the employer might have for weekly Workmen’s Compensation benefits” and did not purport to include or cover all liability Garden Orchards might have arising out of the injury. The redemption order, by its terms, similarly redeemed only Garden Orchards’ "entire liability for workers’ disability compensation benefits,” and did not purport to include any other liability that Garden Orchards might have arising out of Ray F. Allen’s death.
If Lucille R. Allen prevails in this wrongful death action, the judge would be required to reduce the portion of the judgment for economic loss to the extent of the $20,000 workers’ compensation benefit paid to her pursuant to the redemption agreement.18
Reversed and remanded to the circuit court.
Cavanagh, C.J., and Brickley, J., concurred with Levin, J.