Griffin, J.
Plaintiff seeks workers’ compensation1 benefits for injuries incurred in an automobile accident while traveling from home to her doctor’s office where she was to receive treatment for a prior work-related compensable injury. Nearly half a century ago, in Rucker v Michigan Smelting & Refining Co, 300 Mich 668; 2 NW2d 808 (1942), this Court held that a subsequent injury sustained under similar circumstances was not compensable because it did not arise "out of and in the course of employment” within the meaning of the act.2 In this appeal we are asked to extend workers’ compensation coverage to include plaintiff’s automobile accident injuries. Taking into account that Rucker was the law in 1972 when the Legislature passed the no-fault act,3 which allocated costs as between the no-fault and workers’ compensation system, and noting that the Legislature, despite numerous opportunities to do [658]*658so, has left undisturbed our holding in Rucker, we decline to overrule it. Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
i
While engaged in defendant Chrysler’s employ on April 1, 1978, plaintiff Corrine Dean suffered a work-related injury when an explosion hurled a piece of metal against her leg. Defendant does not dispute that this injury is compensable under the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act. Plaintiff returned to work around May 19, 1978, and was placed on restricted or favored-work status. Plaintiff did not report to work on June 28, 1978, in order to attend an appointment with her personal physician to review the results of lab tests and receive further treatment in connection with the prior work-related leg injury. While en route from home to her physician’s office plaintiff sustained multiple injuries in a one-car motor vehicle accident in which her car apparently flipped over a concrete barrier.
In addition to workers’ disability compensation for the workplace leg injury, which is not contested, plaintiff seeks coverage under the act for the injuries sustained in the June 28, 1978, motor vehicle accident.4 A hearing referee found that although "plaintiff’s injury, while travelling to the doctor’s office [did] not constitute a new compensable injury ... it [was] a consequence of the origi[659]*659nal injury and the disability . . . therefore, [was] compensable as resultant therefrom.” The wcab affirmed with modifications not relevant to this appeal.
Subsequently, a unanimous panel of the Court of Appeals reversed in an unpublished per curiam opinion.5 Finding that Rucker controlled, the Court concluded that the injuries sustained in the automobile accident did not arise out of and in the course of plaintiff’s employment because they were not the direct and natural result of the compensable primary injury.
Plaintiff’s initial application to this Court for leave to appeal was denied. 431 Mich 913 (1988). However, plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration, and we then granted leave to appeal. 432 Mich 921 (1989).
ii
In Rucker, supra, the plaintiff suffered a work-connected injury while in the defendant’s employ and was sent to a doctor who treated the injury. Afterwards, the doctor sent the plaintiff home in a taxicab at the expense of the defendant’s insurer. While en route, the cab was involved in a collision, resulting in an injury to the plaintiff’s eye. In determining whether the accident which occasioned the plaintiff’s eye injury "arose out of and in the course of his employment,” the Rucker Court stated the general rule that injuries arise out of the employment
"[w]hen there is apparent to the rational mind, upon consideration of all the circumstances, a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed, and [660]*660the resulting injury. Under this test, if the injury can be seen to have followed as a natural incident of the work and to have been contemplated by a reasonable person familiar with the whole situation as a result of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the employment, then it arises 'out of’ the employment. But it excludes an injury which cannot fairly be traced to the employment as a contributing proximate cause and which comes from a hazard to which the workman would have been equally exposed apart from the employment.” [300 Mich 671, quoting Appleford v Kimmel, 297 Mich 8, 12; 296 NW 861 (1941).]
The Rucker Court unanimously held that there was "no causal connection” between the prior work-related injury and the injury suffered in the taxicab collision. 300 Mich 672 (emphasis added). Although Rucker is virtually indistinguishable, plaintiff in this case urges that Rucker no longer controls. It is claimed that Rucker was overruled by the plurality decision in Whetro v Awkerman, 383 Mich 235; 174 NW2d 783 (1970), to the extent that Rucker required a proximate cause between the injury and employment. In Whetro, three members of this Court stated "that the law in Michigan today no longer requires the establishment of a proximately causal connection between the employment and the injury to entitle a claimant to compensation.” Id. at 242.6
We reject the argument that Whetro had such an effect with respect to a subsequent injury that occurs away from the workplace. Aside from the fact that the Whetro plurality opinion is not prece[661]*661dent,7 it simply does not address the question of compensability of such a second or subsequent injury.
Whetro is distinguishable from Rucker on two grounds. First, the Whetro claimant was injured when a tornado destroyed the building "wherein he was working for his employer . . . .” Id. at 239. (Emphasis added.)8 Thus, unlike the employee in Rucker and in this case, the claimant in Whetro was actually engaged in his employer’s business when he was injured.9
Secondly, Whetro’s focus was not on a second or subsequent injury; rather, the question there was whether the first, and only, injury was compensable. By contrast, the issue in this case, as in Rucker, is whether a second or subsequent injury is compensable. Accordingly, Whetro did not overrule Rucker, expressly or by implication.
In his treatise on workmen’s compensation, Professor Larson recognizes that the causation rules applicable to a workplace primary injury are not the same as the causation principles which should apply to a second or subsequent injury that occurs away from the workplace. As Larson explains:
A distinction must be observed between causa[662]*662tion rules affecting the primary injury . . . and causation rules that determine how far the range of compensable consequences is carried, once the primary injury is causally connected with the employment. As to the primary injury, it has been shown that the "arising” test is a unique one quite unrelated to common-law concepts of legal cause, and it will be shown later that the employee’s own contributory negligence is ordinarily not an intervening cause preventing initial compensability.
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Griffin, J.
Plaintiff seeks workers’ compensation1 benefits for injuries incurred in an automobile accident while traveling from home to her doctor’s office where she was to receive treatment for a prior work-related compensable injury. Nearly half a century ago, in Rucker v Michigan Smelting & Refining Co, 300 Mich 668; 2 NW2d 808 (1942), this Court held that a subsequent injury sustained under similar circumstances was not compensable because it did not arise "out of and in the course of employment” within the meaning of the act.2 In this appeal we are asked to extend workers’ compensation coverage to include plaintiff’s automobile accident injuries. Taking into account that Rucker was the law in 1972 when the Legislature passed the no-fault act,3 which allocated costs as between the no-fault and workers’ compensation system, and noting that the Legislature, despite numerous opportunities to do [658]*658so, has left undisturbed our holding in Rucker, we decline to overrule it. Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
i
While engaged in defendant Chrysler’s employ on April 1, 1978, plaintiff Corrine Dean suffered a work-related injury when an explosion hurled a piece of metal against her leg. Defendant does not dispute that this injury is compensable under the Workers’ Disability Compensation Act. Plaintiff returned to work around May 19, 1978, and was placed on restricted or favored-work status. Plaintiff did not report to work on June 28, 1978, in order to attend an appointment with her personal physician to review the results of lab tests and receive further treatment in connection with the prior work-related leg injury. While en route from home to her physician’s office plaintiff sustained multiple injuries in a one-car motor vehicle accident in which her car apparently flipped over a concrete barrier.
In addition to workers’ disability compensation for the workplace leg injury, which is not contested, plaintiff seeks coverage under the act for the injuries sustained in the June 28, 1978, motor vehicle accident.4 A hearing referee found that although "plaintiff’s injury, while travelling to the doctor’s office [did] not constitute a new compensable injury ... it [was] a consequence of the origi[659]*659nal injury and the disability . . . therefore, [was] compensable as resultant therefrom.” The wcab affirmed with modifications not relevant to this appeal.
Subsequently, a unanimous panel of the Court of Appeals reversed in an unpublished per curiam opinion.5 Finding that Rucker controlled, the Court concluded that the injuries sustained in the automobile accident did not arise out of and in the course of plaintiff’s employment because they were not the direct and natural result of the compensable primary injury.
Plaintiff’s initial application to this Court for leave to appeal was denied. 431 Mich 913 (1988). However, plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration, and we then granted leave to appeal. 432 Mich 921 (1989).
ii
In Rucker, supra, the plaintiff suffered a work-connected injury while in the defendant’s employ and was sent to a doctor who treated the injury. Afterwards, the doctor sent the plaintiff home in a taxicab at the expense of the defendant’s insurer. While en route, the cab was involved in a collision, resulting in an injury to the plaintiff’s eye. In determining whether the accident which occasioned the plaintiff’s eye injury "arose out of and in the course of his employment,” the Rucker Court stated the general rule that injuries arise out of the employment
"[w]hen there is apparent to the rational mind, upon consideration of all the circumstances, a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is required to be performed, and [660]*660the resulting injury. Under this test, if the injury can be seen to have followed as a natural incident of the work and to have been contemplated by a reasonable person familiar with the whole situation as a result of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the employment, then it arises 'out of’ the employment. But it excludes an injury which cannot fairly be traced to the employment as a contributing proximate cause and which comes from a hazard to which the workman would have been equally exposed apart from the employment.” [300 Mich 671, quoting Appleford v Kimmel, 297 Mich 8, 12; 296 NW 861 (1941).]
The Rucker Court unanimously held that there was "no causal connection” between the prior work-related injury and the injury suffered in the taxicab collision. 300 Mich 672 (emphasis added). Although Rucker is virtually indistinguishable, plaintiff in this case urges that Rucker no longer controls. It is claimed that Rucker was overruled by the plurality decision in Whetro v Awkerman, 383 Mich 235; 174 NW2d 783 (1970), to the extent that Rucker required a proximate cause between the injury and employment. In Whetro, three members of this Court stated "that the law in Michigan today no longer requires the establishment of a proximately causal connection between the employment and the injury to entitle a claimant to compensation.” Id. at 242.6
We reject the argument that Whetro had such an effect with respect to a subsequent injury that occurs away from the workplace. Aside from the fact that the Whetro plurality opinion is not prece[661]*661dent,7 it simply does not address the question of compensability of such a second or subsequent injury.
Whetro is distinguishable from Rucker on two grounds. First, the Whetro claimant was injured when a tornado destroyed the building "wherein he was working for his employer . . . .” Id. at 239. (Emphasis added.)8 Thus, unlike the employee in Rucker and in this case, the claimant in Whetro was actually engaged in his employer’s business when he was injured.9
Secondly, Whetro’s focus was not on a second or subsequent injury; rather, the question there was whether the first, and only, injury was compensable. By contrast, the issue in this case, as in Rucker, is whether a second or subsequent injury is compensable. Accordingly, Whetro did not overrule Rucker, expressly or by implication.
In his treatise on workmen’s compensation, Professor Larson recognizes that the causation rules applicable to a workplace primary injury are not the same as the causation principles which should apply to a second or subsequent injury that occurs away from the workplace. As Larson explains:
A distinction must be observed between causa[662]*662tion rules affecting the primary injury . . . and causation rules that determine how far the range of compensable consequences is carried, once the primary injury is causally connected with the employment. As to the primary injury, it has been shown that the "arising” test is a unique one quite unrelated to common-law concepts of legal cause, and it will be shown later that the employee’s own contributory negligence is ordinarily not an intervening cause preventing initial compensability. But when the question is whether compensability should be extended to a subsequent injury or aggravation related in some way to the primary injury, the rules that come into play are essentially based upon the concepts of "direct and natural results,” and of claimant’s own conduct as an independent intervening cause. [1 Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law, § 13.11, p 3-502. Emphasis added.]
"The basic rule” to be applied to second injury cases according to Professor Larson
is that a subsequent injury, whether an aggravation of the original injury or a new and distinct injury, is compensable if it is the direct and natural result of a compensable primary injury. [Id., p 3-503. Emphasis added.]
However, Larson is required to concede that the "basic rule” is inadequate to justify compensation for most second injuries because, "in the strict sense, none of the consequential injuries we are concerned with are in the course of employment . . . .” Id., § 13.11(d), p 3-542. Thus, Larson finds it "necessary to contrive” a new "quasi-course of employment” concept for analyzing the more difficult cases:
By this expression [quasi-course of employment] is meant activities undertaken by the employee [663]*663following upon his injury which, although they take place outside the time and space limits of the employment, and would not be considered employment activities for usual purposes, are nevertheless related to the employment in the sense that they are necessary or reasonable activities that would not have been undertaken but for the compensable injury. [Id.]
In further explanation of his "quasi-course of employment” approach, Larson states:
There is no intention at this point to suggest that the formulation here worked out is drawn from the pronouncements of actual cases. On the contrary, the reported opinions have developed no satisfactory overall analysis of the problem. However, if one looks at the actual holdings, one can find considerable support for the proposition that the pattern of principle here developed is not out of line with the main body of case law on the subject. [Id., p 3-546.]
While it may be true, as the dissent contends, that a tally of the decisions by courts in other jurisdictions would show that a slight majority line up with the approach taken by Professor Larson, that alone could hardly serve as a principled basis for reversal of the rule in Rucker.10 Such reasoning [664]*664would disregard our duty to construe a statute so as to give effect to the Legislature’s intent. As stated in McKinstry v Valley OB-GYN Clinic, PC, 428 Mich 167, 190-191; 405 NW2d 88 (1987):
"In the interpretation of statutes, the legislative will is the all-important or controlling factor. Indeed, it is frequently stated in effect that the intention of the legislature constitutes the law. Accordingly, the primary rule of construction of statutes is to ascertain and declare the intention of the legislature, and to carry such intention into effect to the fullest degree. A construction adopted should not be such as to nullify, destroy, or defeat the intention of the legislature.” [Quoting 73 Am Jur 2d, Statutes, § 145, p 351.]
When, over a period of many years, the Legislature has acquiesced in this Court’s construction of a statute, the judicial power to change that interpretation ought to be exercised with great restraint. On more than one occasion our Court has quoted with approval the statement that stare decisis
"is especially applicable where the construction placed on a statute by previous decisions has been long acquiesced in by the legislature, by its continued use or failure to change the language of the statute so construed, the power to change the law as interpreted being regarded, in such circumstances, as one to be exercised solely by the legislature.” [Consumers Power Co v Muskegon Co, 346 Mich 243, 251; 78 NW2d 223 (1956), quoting 21 CJS, Courts, § 214, pp 388-390. See also In re [665]*665Clayton Estate, 343 Mich 101, 107; 72 NW2d 1 (1955).][11]
To the extent that prolonged acquiescence suggests legislative approval of the construction given by this Court to a statutory provision, it is reinforced when the Legislature reenacts the statutory language without change. In Smith v Detroit, 388 Mich 637, 650-651; 202 NW2d 300 (1972), we said:
"Even more persuasive is the rule that where the basic provisions of a statute have been construed by the courts and these provisions are subsequently reenacted by the legislature, it may be assumed that the legislature acted with knowledge of the Court’s decisions and that the legislature intended the reenacted statute to carry the Court’s interpretation with it.” [Emphasis in original.][12]
[666]*666Not only has the Legislature convened many times since Rucker was decided in 1942, but the Legislature on numerous occasions has revised and amended the act.13 However, the Legislature has never seen fit to make a substantive change in the "out of and in the course of employment” requirement, nor has it undermined in any way this Court’s construction and application of that language in Rucker, decided nearly half a century ago.14
Moreover, we believe that our decision today is consistent with the intent of the Legislature manifested by its reform efforts during the past decade. A purpose of the comprehensive 1980 and 1981 revisions of the workers’ compensation system15 was to overturn or modify expansive interpretations placed upon the act by this Court.16 Although [667]*667the dollar amount of benefits payable to workers eligible for compensation was increased, there can be no doubt that the Legislature also intended through its 1980 and 1981 reform efforts to narrow and restrict the eligibility qualifications.17 Against that background, and in light of the fact that the Legislature has never seen fit to disturb the rule in Rucker, we decline to overrule it because we believe that the Legislature intended the result we reach today.
m
To hold that Rucker no longer controls the disposition of this case would not only require that we disregard legislative intent but it would have the effect of usurping legislative responsibility in an important respect. When the no-fault system was enacted in 1972, Rucker was the controlling law; it stood for the proposition that a subsequent injury incurred in a motor vehicle accident while en route for treatment of a prior compensable injury was not covered by workers’ compensation. Thus, the Legislature’s allocation of costs as between the no-fault and workers’ compensation systems was made with an awareness18 that the no-[668]*668fault insurance system would shoulder the cost of such accidents.19
Justice Levin’s reasoning in joining to form a majority for the result in McClure v General Motors (On Rehearing), 408 Mich 191, 210; 289 NW2d 631 (1980), which involved an off-premises lunchtime accident, is directly applicable to the instant case. As he then explained,
Under the case law extant when the no-fault insurance act was enacted, employers were not generally liable for off-premises lunchtime injuries and thus, under the act, the motor vehicle insurer of the worker or a family member would ordinarily bear the entire cost of motor vehicle injuries during the lunch period. An extension today of worker’s compensation coverage to lunchtime automobile injuries would, because of § 3109 of the no-fault act, allow the motor vehicle carrier a deduction for worker’s compensation benefits payable and thus work a reallocation, probably unforeseen by the Legislature, of the cost of insurance reparations for such accidents from the no-fault system to the worker’s compensation system. This Court should not disturb the cost allocation extant when the no-fault act was enacted.
Justice Levin further explained,
It is no answer to say that because the purpose of § 3109 was to reduce the cost of no-fault insurance, a reallocation of the cost of [such] motor vehicle accidents away from the no-fault system furthers the Legislature’s purpose. The legislative [669]*669decision embodied in § 3109 may have been based on assumptions regarding the existing costs to the worker’s compensation system that did not include payment for [such] automobile injuries generally. An extension of worker’s compensation liability to [such] automobile injuries not previously covered would impose on that system the greater part of the burden of providing insurance reparations for injuries heretofore compensated through the motor vehicle insurance system. [Id. at 229.]
As in the case of the off-premises lunchtime accident addressed in McClure, overturning Rucker would, for the first time, charge to the workers’ compensation system the cost of injuries sustained in motor vehicle accidents while en route for treatment of a prior compensable injury. Because Rucker was settled law in 1972 when the no-fault act was passed, the Legislature had no reason to anticipate such an extension of workers’ compensation liability to injuries incurred in a motor vehicle accident otherwise covered by the no-fault act. The result advocated by plaintiff would necessarily work a reallocation of the costs associated with such motor vehicle accidents as between the no-fault and workers’ compensation systems, without clear direction from the Legislature.
For these reasons, and on the authority of Rucker, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Riley, C.J., and Levin and Brickley, JJ., concurred with Griffin, J.