Title: WAYNE COUNTY V EDWARD HATHCOCK

State: michigan

Issuer: Michigan Supreme Court

Document:

Michigan Supreme Court 
Lansing, Michigan 
Chief Justice:  
Justices: 
Maura D. Corrigan  
Michael F. Cavanagh 
Elizabeth A. Weaver 
Marilyn Kelly 
Opinion 
Clifford W. Taylor 
Robert P. Young, Jr. 
Stephen J. Markman 
FILED JULY 30, 2004 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No. 124070 
EDWARD HATHCOCK, 
Defendant-Appellant. 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No. 124071 
AARON T. SPECK and 
DONALD E. SPECK, individuals,
Defendants-Appellants. 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee 
v 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No. 124072 
AUBINS SERVICE, INC., DAVID R. YORK,
Trustee, David R. York Revocable Living Trust, 
Defendants-Appellants. 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No. 124073 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
v 
v 
JEFFREY J. KOMISAR,
Defendant-Appellant. 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No. 124074 
ROBERT WARD and LELA WARD, 
Defendants-Appellants, 
and 
HENRY Y. COOLEY,
Defendant. 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No. 124075 
MRS. JAMES GRIZZLE and 
MICHAEL A. BALDWIN, 
Defendant-Appellants, 
and 
RAMIE FAKHOURY, 
Defendant. 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No. 124076 
STEPHANIE A. KOMISAR, 
Defendant-Appellant. 
2  
v 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
v 
v 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No. 124077 
THOMAS L. GOFF, NORMA GOFF,
MARK A. BAKER, JR., and
KATHLEEN A. BARKER, 
Defendants-Appellants. 
COUNTY OF WAYNE,
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
No. 124078 
VINCENT FINAZZO, 
Defendant-Appellant, 
and 
AUBREY L. GREGORY and 
DULCINA GREGORY, 
Defendants. 
BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH 
YOUNG, J. 
We are presented again with a clash of two bedrock 
principles of our legal tradition: the sacrosanct right of 
individuals to dominion over their private property, on the 
one hand and, on the other, the state’s authority to 
condemn private property for the commonweal. In this case, 
Wayne County would use the power of eminent domain to 
condemn defendants’ real properties for the construction of 
a 1,300-acre business and technology park. 
This proposed 
3  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
commercial 
center 
is 
intended 
to 
reinvigorate 
the 
struggling economy of southeastern Michigan by attracting 
businesses, particularly those involved in developing new 
technologies, to the area. 
Defendants argue that this exercise of the power of 
eminent domain is neither authorized by statute nor 
permitted 
under 
article 
10 
of 
the 
1963 
Michigan 
Constitution, which requires that any condemnation of 
private property advance a “public use.” 
Both the Wayne 
Circuit Court and the Court of Appeals rejected these 
arguments—compelled, in no small measure, by this Court’s 
opinion in Poletown Neighborhood Council v Detroit.1
 We 
granted leave in this case to consider the legality of the 
proposed condemnations under MCL 213.23 and art 10, § 2 of 
our 1963 Constitution. 
We conclude that, although these condemnations are 
authorized by MCL 213.23, they do not pass constitutional 
muster under art 10, § 2 of our 1963 constitution. Section 
2 permits the exercise of the power of eminent domain only 
for a “public use.” 
In this case, Wayne County intends to 
transfer the condemned properties to private parties in a 
manner wholly inconsistent with the common understanding of 
“public use” at the time our Constitution was ratified. 
1 410 Mich 616; 304 NW2d 455 (1981). 
4  
 
 
 
 
 
 
Therefore, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals 
and remand the case to the Wayne Circuit Court for entry of 
summary disposition in defendants’ favor. 
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
In April 2001, plaintiff Wayne County initiated 
actions to condemn nineteen parcels of land immediately 
south of Metropolitan Airport. 
The owners of those 
parcels, defendants in the present actions, maintain that 
these condemnations lack statutory authorization and exceed 
constitutional bounds. 
This dispute has its roots in recent renovations of 
Metropolitan Airport. The county’s $2 billion construction 
program produced a new terminal and jet runway and, 
consequently, raised concerns that noise from increased air 
traffic would plague neighboring landowners. 
In an effort 
to obviate such problems, the county, funded by a partial 
grant 
of 
$21 
million 
from 
the 
Federal 
Aviation 
Administration 
(FAA), 
began 
a 
program 
of 
purchasing 
neighboring 
properties 
through 
voluntary 
sales. 
Eventually, the county purchased approximately five hundred 
acres in nonadjacent plots scattered in a checkerboard 
pattern throughout an area south of Metropolitan Airport. 
Wayne County’s agreement with the FAA provided that any 
properties acquired through the noise abatement program 
were to be put to economically productive use. In order to 
5  
 
 
 
 
 
fulfill this mandate, the county, through its Jobs and 
Economic Development Department, developed the idea of 
constructing a large business and technology park with a 
conference center, hotel accommodations, and a recreational 
facility. Thus, the “Pinnacle Project” was born. 
The Pinnacle Project calls for the construction of a 
state-of-the-art business and technology park in a 1,300­
acre area adjacent to Metropolitan Airport. 
The county 
avers that the Pinnacle Project will 
create thousands of jobs, and tens of millions of
dollars in tax revenue, while broadening the 
County’s tax base from predominantly industrial
to 
a 
mixture 
of 
industrial, 
service 
and 
technology. 
The Pinnacle Project will enhance
the image of the County in the development
community, aiding in its transformation from a
high industrial area, to that of an arena ready
to meet the needs of the 21st century. 
This 
cutting-edge development will attract national 
and 
international 
businesses, 
leading 
to 
accelerated 
economic 
growth 
and 
revenue 
enhancement. 
According to expert testimony at trial, it is anticipated 
that the Pinnacle Project will create thirty thousand jobs 
and add $350 million in tax revenue for the county. 
The county planned to construct the business and 
technology park in a 1,300-acre area that included the five 
hundred acres purchased under the federally funded noise 
abatement program. 
Because the county needed to acquire 
more land within the project area, it began anew to solicit 
voluntary sales from area landowners. 
This round of sales 
6  
 
 
 
 
                                                 
negotiations enabled the county to purchase an additional 
five hundred acres within the project area. 
Having acquired over one thousand acres, the county 
determined that an additional forty-six parcels distributed 
in a checkerboard fashion throughout the project area were 
needed for the business and technology park. 
The county 
apparently determined that further efforts to negotiate 
additional voluntary sales would be futile and decided 
instead to invoke the power of eminent domain. 
Thus, on 
July 12, 2000, the Wayne County Commission adopted a 
Resolution 
of 
Necessity 
and 
Declaration 
of 
Taking 
(Resolution of Necessity) authorizing the acquisition of 
the remaining three hundred acres needed for the Pinnacle 
Project. 
The remaining properties were appraised as required by 
the Uniform Condemnation Procedures Act (UCPA),2 and the 
county issued written offers based on these appraisals to 
the property owners. 
Twenty-seven more property owners 
accepted these offers and sold their parcels to the county. 
But 
according 
to 
the 
county’s 
estimates, 
nineteen 
additional parcels were still needed for the Pinnacle 
Project. 
These properties, owned by defendants, are the 
subject of the present condemnation actions. 
2 MCL 213.51 et seq. 
7  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
In late April 2001, plaintiff initiated condemnation 
actions under the UCPA.
 In response, each property owner 
filed a motion to review the necessity of the proposed 
condemnations.3  They argued, first, that the county lacked 
statutory authority to exercise the power of eminent domain 
in 
this 
manner. 
Second, 
defendants 
contended 
that 
acquisition of the subject properties was not necessary as 
required 
by 
statute. 
Finally, 
they 
challenged 
the 
constitutionality 
of 
these 
condemnation 
actions, 
maintaining that the Pinnacle Project would not serve a 
public purpose. 
An evidentiary hearing on the consolidated cases was 
held over four weeks in the Wayne Circuit Court. 
On 
December 19, 2001, the trial court affirmed the county’s 
determination of necessity. 
The court held that the 
takings were authorized by MCL 213.23, that the county did 
not abuse its discretion in determining that condemnation 
was necessary, and that the Pinnacle Project served a 
public purpose as defined by Poletown. 
The trial court 
denied defendants’ motions for reconsideration on January 
24, 2002. 
Defendants appealed the matter to the Court of 
Appeals, which granted leave on April 24, 2003. 
The Court 
3 See MCL 213.56. 
8  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
                                                 
of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision.4  The panel 
concluded that the proposed condemnations passed statutory 
and constitutional muster under MCL 213.21 et seq. and our 
Poletown decision. 
Judge MURRAY, joined by Judge FITZGERALD, 
concurred with Presiding Judge O’CONNELL, but opined that 
Poletown was poorly reasoned, wrongly decided, and ripe for 
reversal by this Court.5 
We granted defendants’ applications for leave to 
appeal on November 17, 2003.6  Our grant order directed the 
parties to the following issues: 
(1) whether plaintiff has the authority,
pursuant to MCL 213.23 or otherwise, to take
defendants’ properties; (2) whether the proposed
taking, which are at least partly intended to
result in later transfers to private entities,
are for a “public purpose,” pursuant to Poletown 
Neighborhood Council v Detroit, 410 Mich 616 
(1981); and (3) whether the “public purpose” test
set forth in Poletown, supra, is consistent with 
Const 1963, art 10, § 2 and, if not, whether this
test should be overruled. 
Further, the parties
should discuss whether a decision overruling
Poletown, supra, should apply retroactively or
prospectively only, taking into consideration the
reasoning in Pohutski v City of Allen Park, 465 
Mich 675 (2002). 
We also solicited briefs amicus curiae. 
STANDARD OF REVIEW 
4 Unpublished opinion per curiam, issued April 24, 2003
(Docket Nos. 239438, 239563, 240187, 240189, 240190,
240193-420195). 
5 Slip op at 5-6 (MURRAY, J, concurring). 
6 469 Mich 952 (2003). 
9  
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
 
  
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
 
Statutory construction is a question of law subject to 
review de novo.7
 In the eminent domain context, the UCPA 
limits our review of a public agency’s determination that a 
condemnation is necessary. 
We may vacate an agency’s 
finding that a condemnation serves a public necessity only 
if a party establishes that the finding is predicated on 
“fraud, error of law, or abuse of discretion.”8 
Constitutional issues, like questions of statutory 
construction, are subject to review de novo.9 
ANALYSIS 
A. 
MCL 213.23 
Defendants, the property owners whose lands Wayne 
County now seeks to condemn, assert that the proposed 
takings exceed the county’s statutory and constitutional 
authority. 
If it were correct that the county lacks 
statutory authorization to condemn defendants’ properties, 
this Court need not—and must not, under well-established 
prudential principles—determine whether the takings also 
violate our Constitution.10
 We begin, therefore, with the 
7 Morales v Auto-Owners Ins Co (After Remand), 469 Mich
487, 490; 672 NW2d 849 (2003). 
8 MCL 213.56(2). 
9 People v Nutt, 469 Mich 565, 573; 677 NW2d 1 (2004). 
10 Federated Publications, Inc v Michigan State Univ Bd 
of Trustees, 460 Mich 75, 93; 594 NW2d 491 (1999) (CAVANAGH, 
10  
 
 
 
 
     
                                                                                                                                                 
 
 
   
county’s contention that MCL 213.23 authorizes the proposed 
condemnations. 
MCL 213.23 provides: 
Any public corporation or state agency is
authorized to take private property necessary for
a public improvement or for the purposes of its
incorporation or for public purposes within the
scope of its powers for the use or benefit of the
public and to institute and prosecute proceedings
for 
that 
purpose. 
When 
funds 
have 
been 
appropriated by the legislature to a state agency
or division thereof or the office of the governor
or 
a 
division 
thereof 
for 
the 
purpose 
of 
acquiring lands or property for a designated
public 
purpose, 
such 
unit 
to 
which 
the 
appropriation has been made is authorized on 
behalf of the people of the state of Michigan to
acquire the lands or property either by purchase,
condemnation or otherwise. For the purpose of
condemnation the unit 
provisions of this act. 
may proceed under the 
In interpreting this statutory language, this Court’s 
primary goal is to give effect to the Legislature’s 
intent.11
 If the Legislature has clearly expressed its 
intent in the language of a statute, that statute must be 
enforced as written, free of any “contrary judicial 
gloss.”12 
J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting a
“longstanding 
rule 
[that] 
requires 
us 
to 
consider 
constitutional questions only as a last resort, and to
avoid such questions where a nonconstitutional basis exists
for resolving the matter”). 
11 Morales, supra at 490. 
12 Id. 
11 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
    
 
 
                                                 
 
 
Wayne County is a “public corporation” as the term is 
used in this statute,13 and is therefore subject to the 
provisions 
of 
this 
section. 
Under 
MCL 
213.23, 
a 
condemnation must be “necessary” for one of three ends: “a 
public improvement or for the purposes [to be advanced by 
the public corporation or state agency’s] incorporation or 
for public purposes within the scope of [the corporation’s 
or agency’s] powers. . . .” 
Additionally, a proposed 
condemnation must be “for the use or benefit of the public. 
. . .”14 
Plaintiff does not argue that the takings at issue are 
a “public improvement” or that they advance purposes of the 
county’s incorporation. 
Consequently, this Court must 
determine only whether the proposed condemnations are 
necessary for public purposes, whether those purposes are 
within the scope of the county’s powers, and whether the 
takings are “for the use or benefit of the public . . . .”15 
1. 
“FOR PUBLIC PURPOSES WITHIN THE SCOPE OF ITS POWERS” 
13 Const 1963, art 7, § 1 (“Each organized county shall
be a body corporate with powers and immunities provided by
law.”); MCL 213.21 (“The term ‘public corporations’ as
herein used shall include all counties, cities, villages,
boards, commissions and agencies made corporations for the
management and control of public business and property
. . ..”). 
14 Id. 
15 MCL 213.23 
12  
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
Wayne 
County’s 
assertion 
that 
the 
proposed 
condemnations are “for public purposes within the scope of 
its powers”16 raises two discrete questions—first, whether 
Wayne County is authorized to exercise the power of eminent 
domain at all and, second, whether this particular exercise 
of the eminent domain power is within the county’s powers. 
There is no question that the state possesses the 
power of eminent domain.17  The state’s authority to condemn 
private property for public use is preserved by our 
Constitution18 and has been expressly acknowledged by this 
Court on a number of occasions.19  But whether that eminent 
domain power extends to counties within the state is 
another matter. 
Plaintiff argues that the Legislature has expressly 
conferred that power upon public corporations such as Wayne 
County through the plain language of MCL 213.23. 
This 
statute begins by stating that “[a]ny public corporation or 
state agency is authorized to take private property 
16 Id. 
17 Peterman v Dep’t of Natural Resources, 446 Mich 177,
185; 521 NW2d 499 (1994) (“[E]ach State by virtue of its
statehood has the right to exercise the power of eminent
domain.”), quoting Loomis v Hartz, 165 Mich 662, 665; 131
NW 85 (1911). 
18 Const 1963, art 10, § 2. 
19 See, for example, Peterman, supra at 185-186,
quoting People ex rel Trombley v Humphrey, 23 Mich 471, 474
(1871). 
13  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
. . . .”20
 Plaintiff argues that this language is a 
separate and independent delegation of the power to condemn 
private property for public purposes. 
Because § 23 
“authoriz[es]” public corporations to condemn property in 
certain circumstances, a public corporation need not rely 
on any other statutory provision in order to exercise the 
power of eminent domain. 
Defendants maintain, however, that plaintiff’s reading 
renders the second sentence of MCL 213.23 a nullity. 
This 
sentence provides: 
When funds have been appropriated by the
legislature to a state agency or division thereof
or the office of the governor or a division
thereof for the purpose of acquiring lands or
property for a designated public purpose, such
unit to which the appropriation has been made is 
authorized on behalf of the people of the state
of Michigan to acquire the lands or property
either by purchase, condemnation or otherwise.[21] 
If the first sentence of MCL 213.23 is a separate grant of 
authority 
to 
condemn, 
defendants 
argue, 
the 
second 
sentence—which also confers the authorization to condemn 
land—is redundant. 
A careful reading of MCL 213.23 reveals that this 
statute is indeed a separate grant of authority and, thus, 
that plaintiff has parsed this statute correctly. 
The 
20 MCL 213.23 (emphasis added). 
21 Id. 
14  
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
first 
sentence 
of 
MCL 
213.23 
states 
that 
a 
public 
corporation such as Wayne County “is authorized” to condemn 
private property if the other preconditions of § 23 are 
met. 
To “authorize” is to “to give the authority or 
official power to” or “to empower.”22
 By its plain 
language, this first sentence is an affirmative grant of 
eminent domain power to public corporations and state 
agencies. 
Contrary to defendants’ arguments, giving effect to 
the plain language of the first sentence does not render 
the remainder of § 23 nugatory. 
The second sentence 
applies only to condemnation by the state, its agencies or 
their divisions; thus, it applies to a subset of the groups 
covered by the first sentence. 
Further, it establishes a 
precondition to the condemnation for a public purpose 
designated by the Legislature—namely, the appropriation of 
funds to the state agency or division for that purpose. 
Finally, the second sentence, unlike the first, authorizes 
specific methods of exercising the power of eminent domain. 
Accordingly, the second sentence of MCL 213.23 does not 
alter the plain meaning of the first: Wayne County, as a 
public corporation, is authorized by MCL 213.23 to condemn 
22 Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (2nd
ed, 2001). 
15  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
property, albeit subject to other constitutional and 
statutory limitations. 
The second question raised by the county’s reliance on 
the “for public purposes within the scope of its powers” 
phrase in § 23 is whether these particular condemnations 
are “within the scope of [Wayne County’s] powers.” 
The 
power upon which plaintiff relies—the authority to condemn 
“for public purposes within the scope of its powers”—calls 
for an analysis of the scope of Wayne County’s “powers,” 
and an assessment of whether the proposed condemnations are 
within those powers. 
Art 7, § 1 of our 1963 Constitution provides that 
“[e]ach organized county shall be a body corporate with 
powers and immunities provided by law.” 
The Constitution 
also declares that a county may codify in its charter the 
power “to adopt resolutions and ordinances relating to its 
concerns.”23
 These constitutional provisions are to be 
“liberally construed”: 
The provisions of this constitution and law
concerning 
counties, 
townships, 
cities 
and 
villages shall be liberally construed in their
favor. Powers granted to counties and townships
by this constitution and by law shall include
those fairly implied and not prohibited by this
constitution.[24] 
23 Const 1963, art 7, § 2.  
24 Const 1963, art 7, § 34.  
16  
 
 
 
  
 
 
                                                 
 
 
Given 
the 
broad 
authority 
conferred 
by 
the 
Constitution 
upon 
local 
governments, 
this 
Court 
has 
acknowledged that Michigan “is a home rule state,” in which 
“local governments are vested with general constitutional 
authority to act on all matters of local concern not 
forbidden by state law.”25
 The Legislature has also 
recognized that the Michigan constitution establishes a 
system of home rule. 
The charter county act,26 enacted in 
1966, states that county charters may expressly provide for 
[t]he authority to perform at the county level 
any function or service not prohibited by law,
which shall include, by way of enumeration and 
not 
limitation: 
Police 
protection, 
fire 
protection, planning, zoning, education, health,
welfare, 
recreation, 
water, 
sewer, 
waste 
disposal, transportation, abatement of air and
water pollution, civil defense, and any other 
function or service necessary or beneficial to
the public health, safety, and general welfare of
the county.[27] 
Plaintiff Wayne County has claimed all the authority 
granted by these constitutional and statutory provisions. 
Its charter states: 
Wayne County, a body corporate, possesses
home rule power enabling it to provide for any
matter of County concern and all powers conferred
by the constitution or law upon charter counties 
25 Airlines Parking v Wayne Co, 452 Mich 527, 537 n 18;
550 NW2d 490 (1996). 
26 MCL 45.501 et seq. 
27 MCL 45.515(c) (emphasis added). 
17  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
or upon general law counties, their officers, or
agencies.[28] 
With this charter provision, Wayne County has claimed for 
itself the power to act in all matters not specifically 
reserved by statute or constitution to the state. 
The 
county’s “powers” include the authority to pursue any end 
that is “necessary or beneficial to the public health, 
safety, and general welfare” of the county,29 assuming that 
the pursuit of that objective is not reserved by our 
Constitution or by statute to the state. 
In 
this 
case, 
Wayne 
County 
has 
condemned 
the 
defendants’ real properties for the following purposes: 
“(1) the creation of jobs for its citizens, (2) the 
stimulation of private investment and redevelopment in the 
county to insure a healthy and growing tax base so that the 
county can fund and deliver critical public services, (3) 
stemming the tide of disinvestment and population loss, and 
(4) 
supporting 
development 
opportunities 
which 
would 
otherwise remain unrealized.”30
 The analysis provided in 
this opinion demonstrates that, unless the pursuit of one 
or more of these objectives has been assigned to the state 
by law, any condemnation in furtherance of these goals is 
28 Wayne County Charter, § 1.112. 
29 See MCL 45.515(c) (emphasis added). 
30 Quoted from complaint for condemnation. 
18  
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
“within the scope of Wayne County’s powers,” as required by 
MCL 213.23. 
Defendants have adduced no constitutional or 
statutory support for the proposition that a home rule 
county 
such 
as 
Wayne 
County 
may 
not 
pursue 
these 
objectives. 
Accordingly, the proposed condemnations are— 
at least for statutory purposes—within the scope of Wayne 
County’s powers. 
The pursuit of the goals cited above is within the 
scope of Wayne County’s powers, and each goal certainly 
advances a “public purpose.” 
A “public purpose” has been 
defined as that which “’has for its objective the promotion 
of the public health, safety, morals, general welfare, 
security, 
prosperity, 
and 
contentment 
of 
all 
the 
inhabitants or residents within the municipal corporation, 
the sovereign powers of which are used to promote such 
public purpose.’”31  A transition from a declining rustbelt 
economy to a growing, technology-driven economy would, no 
doubt, 
promote 
prosperity 
and 
general 
welfare. 
Consequently, the county’s goal of drawing commerce to 
metropolitan Detroit and its environs by converting the 
subject properties to a state-of-the-art technology and 
31 Gaylord v Gaylord City Clerk, 378 Mich 273, 300; 144
NW2d 460 (1966), quoting Hays v Kalamazoo, 316 Mich 443,
454; 25 NW2d 787 (1947), quoting 37 Am Jur, Municipal
Corporations, § 120, p 734. 
19  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
business park is within this definition of a “public 
purpose.” 
That is not to say, of course, that the exercise of 
eminent domain in this case passes constitutional muster. 
While 
the 
proposed 
condemnations 
satisfy 
the 
broad 
parameters established by MCL 213.23, it must also be 
determined whether these condemnations pass the more narrow 
requirements of our Constitution. We address this question 
later. 
2. 
“NECESSARY” 
For a public corporation to condemn property under MCL 
213.23, a proposed taking must not only advance one of the 
three objectives listed in that statute, but it must also 
be “necessary” to that end. The Legislature has vested the 
authority to determine the necessity required under MCL 
213.23 in those entities authorized to condemn private 
property under that statute.32
 Accordingly, Michigan’s 
courts are bound by a public corporation’s determination 
that a proposed condemnation serves a public necessity 
32 MCL 213.56(2) (“With respect to an acquisition by a
public agency, the determination of public necessity by
that agency is binding on the court in the absence of a 
showing of fraud, error of law, or abuse of discretion.”). 
20  
 
 
 
 
     
   
                                                 
 
 
  
unless the party opposing the condemnation demonstrates 
“fraud, error of law, or abuse of discretion.”33 
Defendants advance three basic arguments for the 
proposition that plaintiff has failed to establish that the 
takings are “necessary” as required by MCL 213.23 and 
therefore abused its discretion in condemning the subject 
properties. 
They contend, first, that the county has 
neither identified specific private purchasers for each of 
the defendants’ parcels nor demonstrated that the parcels 
will be put to productive use now or in the immediate 
future. 
Thus, defendants argue that Wayne County is 
impermissibly 
using 
the 
power 
of 
eminent 
domain 
to 
“stockpile” land for speculative future use, a practice 
expressly prohibited fifty years ago in Grand Rapids Bd of 
34
Ed v Baczewski.
We disagree. 
The proposed condemnations are quite 
unlike the exercise of eminent domain prohibited in 
Baczewski. 
There, a local board of education attempted to 
condemn property near a high school because it surmised 
that the high school would need to expand in approximately 
33 Id. See also Detroit v Lucas, 180 Mich App 47, 53;
446 NW2d 596 (1989). 
34 Grand Rapids Bd of Ed v Baczewski, 340 Mich 265,
272; 65 NW2d 810 (1954). 
21  
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
thirty years. 
The affected landowner challenged the 
condemnation 
under 
the 
1908 
Constitution,35 
which—in 
contrast to the 1963 Constitution36—expressly required any 
exercise of eminent domain to be “necessary.” This Court 
held that a condemnation is “necessary” only if the 
condemned property will be used “immediately” or “within a 
period of time that the jury determines to be the ‘near 
future’ or a ‘reasonably immediate use.’”37  The speculative 
need for property in thirty years time lacked any of the 
urgency of a “necessary” condemnation. 
Even if we grant, arguendo, that the definition of 
“necessity” under the 1908 Constitution applies to MCL 
213.23 
as 
well, 
the 
present 
case 
is 
nevertheless 
distinguishable from Baczewski. 
Whereas the school board 
in 
Baczewski 
admitted 
that 
it 
would 
not 
need 
the 
defendant’s 
property 
for 
thirty 
years 
after 
its 
condemnation, plaintiff has a definite plan for defendants’ 
properties 
and 
intends 
to 
construct 
a 
business 
and 
35 Const 1908, art 13, § 1 (“Private property shall not
be taken by the public nor by any corporation for public
use, without the necessity therefor being first determined
and just compensation therefor being first made or secured
in such manner as shall be prescribed by law.”). 
36 Const 1963, art 10, § 2 (“Private property shall not
be taken for public use without just compensation therefor
being first made or secured in a manner prescribed by law.
Compensation shall be determined in proceedings in a court
of record.”). 
37 Baczewski, supra at 272. 
22  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
technology park as soon as possible. 
According to the 
trial 
court’s 
summary 
of 
testimony 
at 
trial, 
the 
acquisition of defendants’ properties would also enable the 
county to achieve a “critical mass of property,” and would 
thereby facilitate investment in the project. 
Baczewski 
does not bar an exercise of the power of eminent domain 
simply because the ultimate owner of the condemned land has 
yet to be identified. 
Second, 
defendants 
argue 
that 
the 
proposed 
condemnations are not “necessary” under MCL 213.23 because 
plaintiff must still clear a number of procedural hurdles 
in order to proceed with the Pinnacle Project. 
These 
include the need for a special exclusion from the FAA in 
order to use land acquired through the noise abatement 
program for the Pinnacle Project, environmental concerns 
that may arise if construction of the project disturbs 
extant wildlife habitats, and the creation of local 
district finance authority and tax increment finance plan 
under the Local Development Financing Act.38 
This argument is unpersuasive. 
MCL 213.23 requires a 
proposed condemnation to be “necessary” to advance one of 
the specified purposes. It does not, however, require that 
the condemning authority clear all other statutory and 
38 MCL 125.2151 et seq. 
23  
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
                                                 
 
procedural 
hurdles 
before 
commencing 
condemnation 
proceedings. 
In arguing that the plaintiff has failed to 
demonstrate necessity, defendants have essentially read new 
requirements into MCL 213.23. 
Finally, 
defendants 
assert, 
without 
supporting 
argument, that plaintiff has failed to establish that “the 
[business and technology] park is necessary for the 
public.” 
Given defendants’ failure to brief the issue, 
this Court may consider it abandoned.39  In any event, the 
argument 
erroneously 
shifts 
the 
burden 
of 
proof 
to 
plaintiff when the party opposing condemnation bears the 
burden of proving fraud, error of law, or abuse of 
discretion by the condemning authority.40 
3. 
“FOR THE USE OR BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC” 
A condemnation that is necessary for a public purpose 
within the scope of the condemning authority’s powers must 
also be “for the use or benefit of the public” in order to 
be valid under MCL 213.23. 
There is ample evidence in the 
record that the Pinnacle Project would benefit the public. 
The 
development 
is 
projected 
to 
bring 
jobs 
to 
the 
struggling local economy, add to tax revenues and thereby 
increase the resources available for public services, and 
39 Gross v Gen Motors Corp, 448 Mich 147, 162 n 8; 528
NW2d 707 (1995). 
40 See n 14, supra, and accompanying text. 
24  
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
attract investors and businesses to the area, thereby 
reinvigorating the local economy. 
In fact, defendants do not dispute that the proposed 
condemnations would benefit the public. 
Instead, relying 
on City of Lansing v Edward Rose Realty, Inc,41 defendants 
argue that the benefits that private parties will receive 
through the Pinnacle Project outweigh any benefits that the 
general public is likely to receive and, therefore, that 
plaintiff has failed to establish a “public use or 
benefit.” 
The two Edward Rose passages on which defendants rely, 
however, concern issues quite distinct from those under 
consideration here. The Edward Rose Court first engaged in 
a balancing of public and private interests in addressing 
whether a city ordinance authorizing the condemnation of 
private property was a legitimate exercise of the general 
authority conferred upon Lansing as a home rule city.42  The 
Court then returned to the balancing of public and private 
interests when evaluating the city’s ordinance under the 
“heightened scrutiny” test of Poletown.43
 Neither passage 
concerns the meaning of the phrase “public benefit,” much 
41 City of Lansing v Edward Rose Realty, Inc, 442 Mich 
626; 502 NW2d 638 (1993). 
42 Id. at 634-635 
43 Poletown, supra at 634-635. 
25  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
less the meaning of “public benefit” as used in MCL 213.23. 
Moreover, Edward Rose nowhere suggests that the “public use 
or benefit” element of MCL 213.23 requires a balancing of 
public and private benefits, or that public benefits must 
predominate over private ones under this statute. As such, 
defendants have failed to persuade us that the proposed 
condemnations will fail to provide a “public benefit” 
within the meaning of MCL 213.23. 
On the basis of the foregoing analysis, we conclude 
that 
the 
condemnations 
sought 
by 
Wayne 
County 
are 
consistent with MCL 213.23 and that this statute is a 
separate and independent grant of eminent domain authority 
to public corporations such as Wayne County. 
If the 
authority to condemn private property conferred by the 
Legislature lacked any constitutional limits, this Court 
would be compelled to affirm the decisions of the circuit 
court and the Court of Appeals. But our state Constitution 
does, in fact, limit the state’s power of eminent domain. 
Therefore, it must be determined whether the proposed 
condemnations pass constitutional muster. 
B. ART 10, § 2 
Art 10, § 2 of Michigan’s 1963 Constitution provides 
that “[p]rivate property shall not be taken for public use 
without just compensation therefor being first made or 
secured in a manner prescribed by law.” Plaintiffs contend 
26  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
that the proposed condemnations are not “for public use,” 
and 
therefore 
are 
not 
within 
constitutional 
bounds. 
Accordingly, our analysis must now focus on the “public 
use” requirement of Art 10, § 2. 
1. 
“Public Use” as a Legal Term of Art 
The primary objective in interpreting a constitutional 
provision is to determine the text’s original meaning to 
the ratifiers, the people, at the time of ratification.44 
This rule of “common understanding” has been described by 
Justice COOLEY in this way: 
"A constitution is made for the people and
by the people. The interpretation that should be 
given it is that which reasonable minds, the 
great mass of the people themselves, would give
it. 'For as the Constitution does not derive its 
force from the convention which framed, but from
the people who ratified it, the intent to be 
arrived at is that of the people, and it is not 
to be supposed that they have looked for any dark
or abstruse meaning in the words employed, but 
rather that they have accepted them in the sense
most obvious to the common understanding, and 
ratified the instrument in the belief that that 
was the sense designed to be conveyed.'”[45] 
In 
short, 
the 
primary 
objective 
of 
constitutional 
interpretation is to realize the intent of the people by 
whom and for whom the constitution was ratified. 
44 Nutt, supra at 573. 
45 Traverse City School Dist v Attorney General, 384 
Mich 390, 405; 185 NW2d 9 (1971) (emphasis in original),
quoting COOLEY's Constitutional Limitations 81. 
27  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
 
This Court typically discerns the common understanding 
of constitutional text by applying each term’s plain 
meaning at the time of ratification.46
 But if the 
constitution employs technical or legal terms of art, “we 
are to construe those words in their technical, legal 
sense.”47
 Justice COOLEY has justified this principle of 
constitutional interpretation in this way: 
[I]t must not be forgotten, in construing
our constitutions, that in many particulars they
are but the legitimate successors of the great 
charters of English liberty, whose provisions
declaratory of the rights of the subject have
acquired a well-understood meaning, which the 
people must be supposed to have had in view in
adopting them. 
We cannot understand these 
provisions unless we understand their history,
and when we find them expressed in technical
words, and words of art, we must suppose these
words to be employed in their technical sense. 
When the law speaks of an ex post facto law, it
means 
a 
law 
technically 
known 
by 
that 
designation; the meaning of the phrase having
become defined in the history of constitutional
law, and being so familiar to the people that it
is not necessary to employ language of a more
popular character to designate it. The technical 
sense in these cases is the sense popularly
understood, because that is the sense fixed upon
the words in legal and constitutional history
where they have been employed for the protection
of popular rights.[48] 
46 Silver Creek, supra at 375. 
47 Id. 
48 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p
130-133. 
See also in In re Payne, 444 Mich 679, 707 n 6;
512 NW2d 121 (1994) (RILEY, J., concurring in part and 
dissenting in part) (quoting a portion of this passage). 
28  
  
 
 
 
                                                                                                                                                 
 
 
  
 
 
Justice COOLEY recognized, as demonstrated by the 
passage cited above, that, in ratifying a constitution, the
people may understand that certain terms used in that
document 
have 
a 
technical 
meaning 
within 
the 
law. 
Therefore, the people may ratify a constitution with the
understanding that it incorporates legal terms of art—or,
in Justice COOLEY’s terms, words “employed in their technical
sense.” Cooley, supra at 132. 
When one actually engages in the mode of analysis
described by Justice COOLEY and quoted by Justice WEAVER, one
need look no farther than the COOLEY treatise upon which the
concurrence relies to see that “public use” is indeed a
term of art. 
See Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (5th
ed, 1998), p 657-666. 
After surveying some of the many
judicial opinions wrestling with this concept, Justice COOLEY 
concludes: “But accepting as correct the decisions which
have been made, it must be conceded that the term ‘public
use’ as employed in the law of eminent domain, has a
meaning much controlled by the necessity, and somewhat 
different from that which it bears generally.” 
Cooley,
Constitutional Limitations (5th ed, 1998), p 664-665 
(emphasis added). 
See also id. at 659 (“We find ourselves
somewhat at sea, however, when we undertake to define in
the light of the judicial decisions, what constitutes a
public use.”). 
Thus, the notion that the meaning of “public use” was
“commonly understood by the people, learned and unlearned,
who ratified the constitution,” post at 22, is one that
would have been quite foreign to Justice COOLEY. In fact,
this eminent jurist admitted to being “somewhat at sea” in
attempting to cull a single definition of “public use” from
the complex case law on the power of eminent domain.
Cooley, supra at 659. This admission from our patron saint
of constitutional interpretation stands in stark contrast
to fictionalized “common understanding” proffered by the
concurring opinion. 
Frankly, we are hard pressed to understand what 
differentiates Justice WEAVER’s construction from our own. 
Justice WEAVER herself acknowledges that “public use” must be 
read as a technical term. 
See post at 20-21. 
Justice 
WEAVER’s recognition that “public use” must be read in light
of its “legal and constitutional history” is precisely our
point. 
29  
  
 
 
 
 
   
                                                                                                                                                 
 
 
 
Thus, in Silver Creek, for example, we determined that the 
phrase “just compensation” was a legal term of art of 
enormous 
complexity, 
and 
that 
its 
meaning 
could 
be 
discerned only by canvassing legal precedent on “just 
compensation” before 1963 to determine how an individual 
versed in the law before the Constitution’s ratification 
would understand that concept.49  Indeed, we have held that 
the whole of art 10, § 2 has a technical meaning that must 
be discerned by examining the “purpose and history” of the 
power of eminent domain.50 
“Public use” is a legal term of art every bit as 
complex as “just compensation.” 
It has reappeared as a 
positive limit on the state’s power of eminent domain in 
Michigan’s constitutions of 1850,51 1908,52 and 1963,53 and 
If there is any meaningful difference between reading
a constitutional term according to its legal history 
because the ratifiers understood that the term was one with 
a technical meaning (our position) or because the ratifiers
themselves were familiar with that legal history (Justice
WEAVER’s position) it is one we find difficult to discern. 
Under either Justice Weaver’s locution or ours, “public
use” is read according to its “legal and constitutional
history.” 
Thus, it cannot be the case that our test leads
more easily to “elitist” abuse than the hers, since Justice
Weaver’s 
“common 
understanding” 
approach 
is 
indistinguishable in result from our own. 
49 Silver Creek, supra at 376. 
50 Peterman, supra at 186-187. 
51 See Const 1850, art 15, § 9. 
(“The property of no
person shall be taken by any corporation for public use, 
30  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                                                                                                                 
each invocation of “public use” has been followed by 
litigation over the precise contours of this language. 
Consequently, this Court has weighed in repeatedly on the 
meaning of this legal term of art. 
We can uncover the 
common understanding of art 10, § 2 only by delving into 
this body of case law, and thereby determining the “common 
understanding” among those sophisticated in the law at the 
time of the Constitution’s ratification. 
This case does not require that this Court cobble 
together a single, comprehensive definition of “public use” 
from our pre-1963 precedent and other relevant sources. 
The question presented here is a fairly discrete one: are 
the 
condemnation 
of 
defendants’ 
properties 
and 
the 
subsequent transfer of those properties to private entities 
pursuant to the Pinnacle Project consistent with the common 
understanding of “public use” at ratification? 
For the 
reasons stated below, we answer that question in the 
negative. 
2. 
“PUBLIC USE” AND PRIVATE OWNERSHIP 
When our Constitution was ratified in 1963, it was 
well-established 
in 
this 
Court’s 
eminent 
domain 
without compensation being first made or secured, in such
manner as may be prescribed by law.”). 
52 See note 35. 
53 See note 36. 
31 
 
 
 
  
                                                 
 
 
jurisprudence 
that 
the 
constitutional 
“public 
use” 
requirement was not an absolute bar against the transfer of 
condemned property to private entities.54
 It was equally 
clear, however, that the constitutional “public use” 
requirement worked to prohibit the state from transferring 
condemned property to private entities for a private use.55 
Thus, this Court’s eminent domain jurisprudence—at least 
that portion concerning the reasons for which the state may 
condemn private property—has focused largely on the area 
between these poles. 
Justice RYAN’s Poletown dissent accurately describes 
the factors that distinguish takings in the former category 
from those in the latter according to our pre-1963 eminent 
domain jurisprudence.56
 Accordingly, we conclude that the 
transfer of condemned property is a “public use” when it 
possess one of the three characteristics in our pre-1963 
case law identified by Justice RYAN. 
54 This fact is also noted by Justice RYAN in his 
Poletown dissent. Poletown, supra at 670. 
55 See, e.g., Bd of Health of Portage Twp v Van Hoesen,
87 Mich 533; 49 NW 894 (1891) (dismissing a petition
seeking the condemnation of private property for use as a
cemetery). 
56 Poletown, supra at 674-681. 
Although Justice RYAN 
viewed these common elements as “exceptions” to the general
rule against condemnations for private use, the three 
exceptions reflect concepts that are incorporated into the
definition of “public use,” given the principles of 
constitutional interpretation articulated above. 
32  
 
 
 
   
 
                                                 
 
 
 
 
 
First, 
condemnations 
in 
which 
private 
land 
was 
constitutionally transferred by the condemning authority to 
a private entity involved “public necessity of the extreme 
sort otherwise impracticable.”57
 The “necessity” that 
Justice RYAN identified in our pre-1963 case law is a 
specific kind of need: 
[T]he exercise of eminent domain for private
corporations 
has 
been 
limited 
to 
those 
enterprises generating public benefits whose very
existence depends on the use of land that can be
assembled 
only 
by 
the 
coordination 
central 
government alone is capable of achieving.[58] 
Justice Ryan listed “highways, railroads, canals, and other 
instrumentalities of commerce” as examples of this brand of 
necessity.59
 A corporation constructing a railroad, for 
example, must lay track so that it forms a more or less 
straight path from point A to point B. If a property owner 
between points A and B holds out—say, for example, by 
refusing to sell his land for any amount less than fifty 
times its appraised value—the construction of the railroad 
is halted unless and until the railroad accedes to the 
property owner’s demands. 
And if owners of adjoining 
properties receive word of the original property owner’s 
windfall, they too will refuse to sell. 
57 Id. at 675 (RYAN, J., dissenting).  
58 Id. at 676 (emphasis in original).  
59 Id. at 675.  
33  
 
 
 
 
  
                                                 
 
 
The likelihood that property owners will engage in 
this 
tactic 
makes 
the 
acquisition 
of 
property 
for 
railroads, 
gas 
lines, 
highways, 
and 
other 
such 
“instrumentalities of commerce” a logistical and practical 
nightmare. 
Accordingly, this Court has held that the 
exercise 
of 
eminent 
domain 
in 
such 
cases—in 
which 
collective action is needed to acquire land for vital 
instrumentalities 
of 
commerce—is 
consistent 
with 
the 
constitutional “public use" requirement.60 
Second, this Court has found that the transfer of 
condemned property to a private entity is consistent with 
the constitution’s “public use” requirement when the 
private entity remains accountable to the public in its use 
of that property.61 Indeed, we disapproved of the use of 
eminent domain in Portage Twp Bd of Health in part because 
60 See, e.g., Swan v Williams, 2 Mich 427 (1852)
(holding that the condemnation of private property by a
railroad company was consistent with the eminent domain
provision of the federal constitution and the Northwest
Ordinance of 1787). 
61 Poletown, supra at 677 (RYAN, J., dissenting), citing 
Swan, supra at 439-440 (“’By the terms of the charter the
title to the lands is contingent upon their occupation as a
railroad. It is vested in the company so long as they are
used for a railroad, and no longer.’”). 
34  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
                                                 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
the entity acquiring the condemned land would not be 
subject to public oversight.62  As Justice RYAN observed: 
[T]his Court disapproved condemnation that
would have facilitated the generation of water
power by a private corporation because the power
company “will own, lease, use, and control” the
water power. 
In addition, [we] warned, “Land
cannot be taken, under the exercise of the power
of eminent domain, unless, after it is taken, it
will be devoted to the use of the public,
independent of the will of the corporation taking
it.”[63] 
In contrast, we concluded in Lakehead Pipe Line Co v Dehn 
that the state retained sufficient control of a petroleum 
pipeline constructed by plaintiff on condemned property.64 
We noted specifically that plaintiff had “pledged itself to 
transport 
in 
intrastate 
commerce,”65 
that 
plaintiff’s 
pipeline was used pursuant to directions from the Michigan 
Public Service Commission, and that the state would be able 
to enforce those obligations, should the need arise.66 
Thus, 
in 
the 
common 
understanding 
of 
those 
sophisticated in the law at the time of ratification, the 
62 Poletown, supra. at 677 (RYAN, J., dissenting), 
quoting Portage Twp Bd of Health, supra at 539.   
63 
Poletown, supra at 678 (RYAN, J., dissenting)
(emphasis in original; citations omitted), citing Berrien 
Springs Water-Power Co v Berrien Circuit Judge, 133 Mich 
48, 51, 53; 94 NW 379 (1903). 
64 Lakehead PipeLine Co v Dehn, 340 Mich 25; 64 NW2d
903 (1954). 
65 Id. at 42. 
66 Id. at 41-42. 
35  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
 
 
“public use” requirement would have allowed for the 
transfer of condemned property to a private entity when the 
public retained a measure of control over the property. 
Finally, condemned land may be transferred to a 
private entity when the selection of the land to be 
condemned is itself based on public concern.67  In Justice 
RYAN’s words, the property must be selected on the basis of 
“facts of independent public significance,” meaning that 
the underlying purposes for resorting to condemnation, 
rather than the subsequent use of condemned land, must 
satisfy the Constitution’s public use requirement. 
The primary example of a condemnation in this vein is 
found in In re Slum Clearance,68 a 1951 decision from this 
Court. 
In that case, we considered the constitutionality 
of Detroit’s condemnation of blighted housing and its 
subsequent resale of those properties to private persons. 
The city’s controlling purpose in condemning the properties 
was to remove unfit housing and thereby advance public 
health and safety; subsequent resale of the land cleared of 
blight was “incidental” to this goal.69
 We concluded, 
67 Poletown, supra at 680 (RYAN, J., dissenting).   
68 In re Slum Clearance, 331 Mich 714; 50 NW2d 340
(1951), is cited in Poletown, supra at 680 (RYAN, J., 
dissenting). 
69 Id. at 721. 
36  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
 
therefore, that the condemnation was indeed a “public use,” 
despite the fact that the condemned properties would 
inevitably be put to private use. 
In re Slum Clearance 
turned on the fact that the act of condemnation itself, 
rather than the use to which the condemned land eventually 
would be put, was a public use.70
 Thus, as Justice RYAN 
observed, the condemnation was a “public use” because the 
land was selected on the basis of “facts of independent 
public significance”71—namely, the need to remedy urban 
blight for the sake of public health and safety. 
The foregoing indicates that the transfer of condemned 
property to a private entity, seen through the eyes of an 
individual sophisticated in the law at the time of 
ratification of our 1963 Constitution, would be appropriate 
in one of three contexts: (1) where “public necessity of 
the extreme sort” requires collective action; (2) where the 
property remains subject to public oversight after transfer 
to a private entity; and (3) where the property is selected 
because of “facts of independent public significance,” 
rather than the interests of the private entity to which 
the property is eventually transferred.72 
70 In re Slum Clearance, supra at 720. 
71 Poletown, supra at 680 (RYAN, J., dissenting). 
72 Id. at 674-681 (RYAN, J., dissenting). 
37  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
3. POLETOWN, 
THE PINNACLE PROJECT, AND PUBLIC USE 
The exercise of eminent domain at issue here—the 
condemnation of defendants’ properties for the Pinnacle 
Project and the subsequent transfer of those properties to 
private entities—implicates none of the saving elements 
noted by our pre-1963 eminent domain jurisprudence. 
The Pinnacle Project’s business and technology park is 
certainly not an enterprise “whose very existence depends 
on the use of land that can be assembled only by the 
coordination 
central 
government 
alone 
is 
capable 
of 
achieving.”73  To the contrary, the landscape of our country 
is flecked with shopping centers, office parks, clusters of 
hotels, and centers of entertainment and commerce. 
We do 
not believe, and plaintiff does not contend, that these 
constellations required the exercise of eminent domain or 
any other form of collective public action for their 
formation. 
Second, the Pinnacle Project is not subject to public 
oversight to ensure that the property continues to be used 
for the commonweal after being sold to private entities. 
Rather, 
plaintiff 
intends 
for 
the 
private 
entities 
purchasing defendants’ properties to pursue their own 
financial welfare with the single-mindedness expected of 
73 Id. at 676 (RYAN, J., dissenting). 
38  
 
 
 
 
any profit-making enterprise. 
The public benefit arising 
from the Pinnacle Project is an epiphenomenon of the 
eventual property owners’ collective attempts at profit 
maximization. 
No formal mechanisms exist to ensure that 
the businesses that would occupy what are now defendants’ 
properties will continue to contribute to the health of the 
local economy. 
Finally, there is nothing about the act of condemning 
defendants’ properties that serves the public good in this 
case. 
The only public benefits cited by plaintiff arise 
after the lands are acquired by the government and put to 
private use. 
Thus, the present case is quite unlike Slum 
Clearance because there are no facts of independent public 
significance (such as the need to promote health and 
safety) that might justify the condemnation of defendants’ 
lands. 
We 
can 
only 
conclude, 
therefore, 
that 
no 
one 
sophisticated in the law at the 1963 Constitution’s 
ratification would have understood “public use” to permit 
the 
condemnation 
of 
defendants’ 
properties 
for 
the 
construction of a business and technology park owned by 
private entities. Therefore, the condemnations proposed in 
this case are unconstitutional under art 10, § 2. 
Indeed, the only support for plaintiff’s position in 
our eminent domain jurisprudence is the majority opinion in 
39  
 
 
 
 
   
                                                 
 
 
Poletown. 
In that opinion per curiam, a majority of this 
Court concluded that our Constitution permitted the Detroit 
Economic 
Development 
Corporation 
to 
condemn 
private 
residential properties in order to convey those properties 
to a private corporation for the construction of an 
assembly plant.74 
As an initial matter, the opinion contains an odd but 
telling 
internal 
inconsistency. 
The 
majority 
first 
acknowledges that the property owners in that case “urge[d 
the Court] to distinguish between the terms ‘use’ and 
‘purpose’, asserting they are not synonymous and have been 
distinguished in the law of eminent domain.”75
 This 
argument, of course, was central to plaintiffs’ case, 
because the Constitution allows the exercise of eminent 
domain only for a “public use.”76  The Court then asserted 
that the plaintiffs conceded that the Constitution allowed 
condemnation for a “public use” or a “public purpose,” 
despite the fact that such a concession would have 
dramatically undermined plaintiffs’ argument: 
There is no dispute about the law. 
All 
agree that condemnation for a public use or 
purpose is permitted. … The heart of this dispute
is whether the proposed condemnation is for the 
74 Id. at 628-629. 
75 Id. at 629-630. 
76 Const 1963, art 10, § 2 (emphasis added). 
40  
 
 
 
 
 
     
                                                 
 
primary benefit of the public or the private
user.[77] 
The majority therefore contended that plaintiffs waived a 
distinction they had “urged” upon the Court. 
And in so 
doing, the majority was able to avoid the difficult 
question whether the condemnation of private property for 
another private entity was a “public use” as that phrase is 
used in our Constitution.78 
This inconsistency aside, the majority opinion in 
Poletown is most notable for its radical and unabashed 
departure from the entirety of this Court’s pre-1963 
eminent domain jurisprudence. The opinion departs from the 
“common understanding” of “public use” at the time of 
ratification in two fundamental ways. 
First, the majority concluded that its power to review 
the proposed condemnations is limited because 
“[t]he determination of what constitutes a public
purpose is primarily a legislative function,
subject to review by the courts when abused, and
the determination of the legislative body of that
matter should not be reversed except in instances 
77 Poletown, supra at 632. 
78 Moreover, as Justice RYAN noted, the majority also
conflated the broad construction of “public purpose” in our
taxation jurisprudence with the more limited construction
of “public purpose” in the eminent domain context. See id. 
at 665-667. 
41  
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
 
where 
such 
determination 
is 
palpable 
and 
manifestly arbitrary and incorrect.”[79] 
The majority derived this principle from a plurality 
opinion of this Court80 and supported the application of the 
principle with a citation of an opinion of the United 
States 
Supreme 
Court 
concerning 
judicial 
review 
of 
congressional acts under the Fifth Amendment of the federal 
constitution.81  Neither case, of course, is binding on this 
Court in construing the takings clause of our state 
Constitution, and neither is persuasive authority for the 
use to which they were put by the Poletown majority. 
It is not surprising, however, that the majority would 
turn to nonbinding precedent for the proposition that the 
Court’s hands were effectively tied by the Legislature. As 
Justice RYAN’s dissent noted: 
In point of fact, this Court has never 
employed the minimal standard of review in an
eminent domain case which is adopted by the 
[Poletown] majority . . . .  Notwithstanding
explicit legislative findings, this Court has 
always made an independent determination of what 
constitutes a public use for which the power of
eminent domain may be utilized.[82] 
79 Id. at 632, quoting Gregory Marina, Inc v Detroit,
378 Mich 364, 396; 144 NW2d 503 (1966) (plurality opinion). 
80 Gregory Marina, supra. 
81 Berman v Parker, 348 US 26; 75 S Ct 98; 99 L Ed 27
(1954). Justice RYAN noted in his Poletown dissent that the 
majority’s reliance on this case “[was] particularly 
disingenuous.” Poletown, supra at 668. 
82 Id. at 669 (emphasis in original). 
42  
 
 
 
 
  
   
                                                 
 
 
Our eminent domain jurisprudence since Michigan’s entry 
into the union amply supports Justice RYAN’s assertion.83 
Questions of public purpose aside, whether the proposed 
condemnations 
were 
consistent 
with 
the 
Constitution’s 
“public use” requirement was a constitutional question 
squarely within the Court’s authority.84
 The Court’s 
reliance on Gregory Marina and Berman for the contrary 
position was, as Justice RYAN observed, “disingenuous.”85
 
Second, the Poletown majority concluded, for the first 
time in the history of our eminent domain jurisprudence, 
that a generalized economic benefit was sufficient under 
art 10, § 2 to justify the transfer of condemned property 
to a private entity. 
Before Poletown, we had never held 
that a private entity’s pursuit of profit was a “public 
use” for constitutional takings purposes simply because one 
entity’s profit maximization contributed to the health of 
the general economy. 
83 See, e.g., Shizas v City of Detroit, 333 Mich 44; 52
NW2d 589 (1952) (holding that the proposed condemnation was
unconstitutional); similarly Portage Twp Bd of Health, 
supra; Ryerson v Brown, 35 Mich 333 (1877); Trombley, 
supra. 
84 See, e.g., Lakehead Pipe Line Co. v Dehn, 340 Mich. 
25, 39; 64 NW2d 903 (1954) (“’The question of whether the
proposed use is a public use is a judicial one.’”), quoting
Cleveland v Detroit, 332 Mich 172, 179; 33 NW2d 747 (1948). 
85 Poletown, supra at 668 (RYAN, J., dissenting). 
43 
 
 
 
 
 
  
                                                 
 
 
 
Justice COOLEY considered a similar proposition86 well 
over a century ago and held that incidental benefits to the 
economy did not justify the exercise of eminent domain for 
private, water-powered mills: 
The statute [allowing the condemnation of
private property for the construction of private
powermills] appears to have been drawn with 
studious care to avoid any requirement that the
person availing himself of its provisions shall
consult any interest except his own, and it 
therefore seems perfectly manifest that when a
public use is spoken of in this statute nothing
further is intended than that the use shall be 
one that, in the opinion of the commission or
jury, will in some manner advance the public
interest. But incidentally every lawful business
does this.[87] 
Justice COOLEY was careful to point out that the Court was 
not ruling out the possibility that “incidental benefits to 
the public” might, in some cases, “justify an exercise of 
the right of eminent domain.”88 But Wayne County has not 
directed us to a single case, other than Poletown, holding 
that a vague economic benefit stemming from a private 
profit-maximizing enterprise is a “public use.” 
86 Ryerson, supra at 337 (“An examination of the
adjudged cases will show that the courts, in looking about
for the public use that was to be accommodated by the
statute, have sometimes attached considerable importance to
the fact that the general improvement of mill sites, as
property possessing great value if improved, and often
nearly worthless if not improved, would largely conduce to
the prosperity of the state.”). 
87 Id. at 339. 
88 Id. 
44 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
  
Every business, every productive unit in society, 
does, as Justice COOLEY noted, contribute in some way to the 
commonweal.89
 To justify the exercise of eminent domain 
solely on the basis of the fact that the use of that 
property by a private entity seeking its own profit might 
contribute to the economy’s health is to render impotent 
our constitutional limitations on the government’s power of 
eminent domain. 
Poletown’s “economic benefit” rationale 
would validate practically any exercise of the power of 
eminent domain on behalf of a private entity. 
After all, 
if one’s ownership of private property is forever subject 
to the government’s determination that another private 
party would put one’s land to better use, then the 
ownership of real property is perpetually threatened by the 
expansion 
plans 
of 
any 
large 
discount 
retailer, 
“megastore,” or the like. Indeed, it is for precisely this 
reason that this Court has approved the transfer of 
condemned property to private entities only when certain 
other conditions—those identified in our pre-1963 eminent 
domain jurisprudence in Justice RYAN’s Poletown dissent—are 
present.90 
89 Id. 
90 See Part B(2). 
45  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
Because Poletown’s conception of a public use—that of 
“alleviating unemployment and revitalizing the economic 
base of the community”91—has no support in the Court’s 
eminent domain jurisprudence before the Constitution’s 
ratification, its interpretation of “public use” in art 10, 
§ 2 cannot reflect the common understanding of that phrase 
among those sophisticated in the law at ratification. 
Consequently, the Poletown analysis provides no legitimate 
support for the condemnations proposed in this case and, 
for the reasons stated above, is overruled. 
We conclude that the condemnations proposed in this 
case do not pass constitutional muster because they do not 
advance a public use as required by Const 1963, art 10, § 
2. Accordingly, this case is remanded to the Wayne Circuit 
Court for entry of summary disposition in defendants’ 
favor. 
C. RETROACTIVITY 
In the process of determining that the proposed 
condemnations cannot pass constitutional muster, we have 
concluded 
that 
this 
Court’s 
Poletown 
opinion 
is 
inconsistent with our eminent domain jurisprudence and 
advances an invalid reading of our constitution. 
Because 
that decision was in error and effectively rendered 
91 Poletown, supra at 634. 
46 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
nugatory the constitutional public use requirement, it must 
be overruled.92 
It is true, of course, that this Court must not 
“lightly overrule precedent.”93  But because Poletown itself 
was 
such 
a 
radical 
departure 
from 
fundamental 
constitutional principles and over a century of this 
Court’s eminent domain jurisprudence leading up to the 1963 
Constitution, we must overrule Poletown in order to 
vindicate our Constitution, protect the people’s property 
rights, and preserve the legitimacy of the judicial branch 
as the expositor—not creator—of fundamental law.94 
In the twenty-three years since our decision in 
Poletown, it is a certainty that state and local government 
actors have acted in reliance on its broad, but erroneous, 
interpretation of art 10, § 2. 
Indeed, Wayne County’s 
course of conduct in the present case was no doubt shaped 
by Poletown’s disregard for constitutional limits on the 
exercise of the power of eminent domain and the license 
that 
opinion 
appeared 
to 
grant 
to 
state 
and 
local 
authorities. 
92 Pohutski v City of Allen Park, 465 Mich 675, 695;
641 NW2d 219 (2002). 
93 Id. at 693. 
94 Id. at 695. 
47  
 
 
 
     
    
                                                 
 
Nevertheless, there is no reason to depart from the 
usual practice of applying our conclusions of law to the 
case at hand.95
 Our decision today does not announce a new 
rule of law, but rather returns our law to that which 
existed before Poletown and which has been mandated by our 
constitution since it took effect in 1963.96  Our decision 
simply applies fundamental constitutional principles and 
enforces the “public use” requirement as that phrase was 
used at the time our 1963 Constitution was ratified.97 
Therefore, our decision to overrule Poletown should 
have retroactive effect, applying to all pending cases in 
which 
a 
challenge 
to 
Poletown 
has 
been 
raised 
and 
preserved.98 
95 See, e.g., Lesner v Liquid Disposal, 466 Mich 95,
108; 643 NW2d 553 (2002). 
96 Pohutski, supra at 696. 
97 See Baughman, Justice Moody’s lament unanswered: 
Michigan’s unprincipled retroactivity jurisprudence, 79 
Mich 
B 
J 
664 
(2000), 
quoting 
COOLEY, 
Constitutional 
Limitations, 91 (“When the Michigan Supreme Court exercises
the ‘judicial power,’ it is, as said by Justice Cooley,
concerned with a determination of what the existing law is,
even in ‘changing’ a mistaken interpretation, rather than
making a ‘predetermination of what the law shall be for the
regulation of all future cases,’ which is an act that
‘distinguishes a legislative act from a judicial one.’”). 
98 We disagree with Justice CAVANAGH’s conclusion that 
this decision should apply prospectively. First, this case
presents none of the exigent circumstances that warranted
the 
“extreme 
measure” 
of 
prospective 
application 
in 
Pohutski v City of Allen Park. Gladych v New Family Homes,
Inc, 468 Mich 594, 606 n 6; 664 NW2d 705 (2003. 
Second, 
48  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                                                                                                                 
 
CONCLUSION  
We conclude that the condemnation of defendants’ 
properties is consistent with MCL 213.23. However, we also 
hold that the proposed condemnations do not advance a 
“public use” as required by art 10, § 2 of our 1963 
Constitution. Therefore, the decisions of the lower courts 
are reversed and this matter is remanded for entry of an 
order of summary disposition in defendants’ favor. 
Robert P. Young, Jr.
Maura D. Corrigan
Clifford W. Taylor
Stephen J. Markman 
there 
is 
a 
serious 
question 
as 
to 
whether 
it 
is 
constitutionally legitimate for this Court to render purely
prospective opinions, as such rulings are, in essence,
advisory opinions. 
The only instance in which we are
constitutionally authorized to issue an advisory opinion is
upon the request of either house of the legislature or the
governor—and, then, only “on important questions of law
upon solemn occasions as to the constitutionality of 
legislation after it has been enacted into law but before
its effective date.” 
Const 1963 art 3, § 8. 
Furthermore,
this Court has recognized that “[c]omplete prospective 
application has generally been limited to decisions which 
overrule clear and uncontradicted case law.” 
Hyde v Univ 
of Mich Bd of Regents, 426 Mich 223, 240; 393 NW2d 847
(1986). 
Because Poletown was a radical departure from our
eminent domain jurisprudence, it is hardly the “clear and
uncontradicted case law” contemplated by Hyde. 
49 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N  
SUPREME COURT  
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124070 
EDWARD HATHCOCK, 
Defendant-Appellant.
_______________________________/ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124071 
ARRON T. SPECK and DONALD E. SPECK, 
Defendants-Appellants.
_______________________________/ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124072 
AUBINS SERVICE, INC. and DAVID R. 
YORK, Trustee of the DAVID R. YORK 
REVOCABLE LIVING TRUST,  
Defendants-Appellants.
_______________________________/ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124073 
JEFFREY J. KOMISAR, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant.
_______________________________/ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124074 
ROBERT WARD and LELA WARD, 
Defendants-Appellants,
and 
HENRY Y. COOLEY, 
Defendant. 
_______________________________/ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124075 
MRS. JAMES GRIZZLE and MICHELLE 
A. BALDWIN, 
Defendants-Appellants,
and 
RAMI FAKHOURY, 
Defendant. 
_______________________________/ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124076 
STEPHANIE A. KOMISAR, 
Defendant-Appellant.
_______________________________/ 
2  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
_______________________________ 
 
 
 
     
                                                 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124077 
THOMAS L. GOFF, NORMA GOFF, MARK
A. BARKER, JR., and KATHLEEN A. BARKER, 
Defendants-Appellants.
_______________________________/ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124078 
VINCENT FINAZZO, 
Defendant-Appellant,
and 
AUBREY L. GREGORY and DULCINA 
GREGORY, 
Defendants. 
WEAVER, J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part)  
I concur with the majority’s result and decision to 
overrule Poletown Neighborhood Council v Detroit, 410 Mich 
616; 304 NW2d 455 (1981), but do so for my own reasons.1 
The Michigan Constitution states: 
Private property shall not be taken for public
use without just compensation therefor being 
1 I also concur in the majority’s reasoning for
applying this decision retroactively. 
3  
 
 
   
                                                 
 
 
first made and secured in a manner prescribed by
law . . . . [Const 1963, art 10, § 2.] 
Proper application of the art 10, § 2’s “public use” 
limitation on the exercise of eminent domain requires that 
the Court abandon Poletown’s holding that land can be taken 
by the government and transferred to a private entity upon 
the mere showing that the economy will generally benefit 
from the condemnation. Thus, Wayne County’s attempt to use 
its eminent domain authority to transfer defendants’ 
properties to private developers to be included in a 
business and technology park violates the “public use” 
limitation of art 10, § 2 even though the park might 
benefit the region’s economy.2 
I dissent from the majority’s holding that “public 
use” must be interpreted as it would have been by those 
“sophisticated” or “versed in the law” at the time of the 
1963 Constitution’s ratification and from their application 
of that holding to the facts of this case. 
Unlike the 
majority, I would employ the long-established method of 
constitutional interpretation that restrains judges by 
2 The public purposes achievable by public corporations
through condemnation pursuant to MCL 213.23 must conform to
the “public use” limitation of Const 1963 art 10, §2.
Because the county’s public purposes extend well beyond the
constitution’s “public use” limitation, the county may not
condemn the properties at issue. 
4  
 
 
 
    
 
 
 
                                                 
requiring them to ascertain the common understanding of the 
people who adopted the constitution. 
The majority’s focus 
on the understanding of those “sophisticated in the law” is 
elitist; it perverts the primary rule of constitutional 
interpretation — that constitutions must be interpreted as 
the 
people, 
learned 
and 
unlearned, 
would 
commonly 
understand them. 
It invites the erosion of constitutional 
protections intended by the Michigan voters who ratified 
the 1963 Constitution.3  The majority’s approach ignores the 
words of Michigan’s respected jurist, Justice THOMAS M. 
COOLEY, who warned against the tendency to force from the 
Constitution, 
by 
“interested 
subtlety 
and 
ingenious 
refinement,” meaning that was never intended by the people 
who adopted it.4 
3 As explained in Univ of Michigan Regents v Michigan,
395 Mich 52, 74-75; 235 NW2d 1 (1975)(citations omitted)
when the people ratified the 1963 Constitution, “the voters
had before them the constitutional language and the
explanatory ‘Convention Comments’ adopted by the delegates.
Therefore, it is not the prerogative of this Court to
change the plain meaning of the words in the constitution
‘as understood by the people who adopted it.’” 
4 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations, (8th ed), p
131. 
5  
 
 
  
 
 
 
I. Constitutional Interpretation 
Justice COOLEY’S often-cited description of the primary 
rule of constitutional interpretation bears repeating: 
“A constitution is made for the people and
by the people. The interpretation that should be
given it is that which reasonable minds, the
great mass of people themselves, would give it.
‘For as the Constitution does not derive its 
force from the convention which framed, but from
the people who ratified it, the intent to be 
arrived at is that of the people, and it is not 
to be supposed that they have looked for any dark
or abstruse meaning in the words employed, but 
rather that they have accepted them in the sense 
most obvious to the common understanding, and 
ratified the instrument in the belief that that 
was 
the 
sense 
designed 
to 
be 
conveyed.’”
[Traverse City School Dist v Attorney General,
384 Mich 390, 405; 185 NW2d 9 (1971), quoting
Cooley’s Const Lim 81 (emphasis in Traverse City
School Dist).] 
To ascertain the common understanding of the Constitution, 
the Court may also consider the circumstances surrounding 
the adoption of a constitutional provision and the purpose 
sought to be accomplished by it. 
Traverse City School 
Dist, supra at 405. 
Contrary to Justice COOLEY’S warnings, the majority 
claims that the relevant “common understanding” by which we 
must interpret art 10, § 2 is that of those “sophisticated 
in the law at the time of the constitution’s ratification.” 
Ante at 32. 
Until the majority’s decision in this case, 
this Court has never asserted that the term “public use” is 
6  
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
a term of such “enormous complexity” that the people who 
ratified the Constitution would be unable to grasp its 
meaning.5
 This Court’s first reliance on the perspective 
of those “sophisticated in the law” was in Michigan 
Coalition of State Employee Unions v Civil Service Comm, 
465 Mich 212; 634 NW2d 692 (2001). 
After appearing to 
acknowledge 
that 
constitutional 
language 
should 
be 
interpreted as it would have been understood by those who 
ratified 
it, 
the 
opinion 
asked, 
“Yet, 
what 
if 
the 
constitution had no plain meaning, but rather is a 
technical and legal term or phrase of art?”  Id at 222. 
Citing, out of context, a statement by Justice COOLEY 
regarding commonly understood technical or legal terms that 
must be supposed to have been employed in their technical 
5 
Ante at 31 (citing Silver Creek Drain Dist v 
Extrusions Div Inc, 468 Mich 367, 375; 663 NW2d 436 (2003).
In Silver Creek, the same majority of justices incorrectly
held that the term “just compensation” in Const 1963, art
10, § 2 must be interpreted as those “sophisticated in the
law” would have understood the term at the time of the 
Constitution’s ratification. I dissented because, “’[j]ust
compensation’ 
has 
long 
been 
readily 
and 
reasonably
understood to be that amount of money that puts the 
property owner whose property is taken in as good, but not
better, a financial position after the taking as the 
property owner enjoyed before the taking.” 
Silver Creek, 
supra at 384-385 (WEAVER, J. dissenting in part). 
7  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
sense,6 the Court majority then erroneously equated such 
terms to words that are “in no way part of the common 
vocabulary.”7
 The Court majority next launched its 
unprecedented rule of constitutional interpretation: 
This, 
then, 
is 
the 
rule: 
if 
a 
constitutional phrase is a technical legal term
or a phrase of art in the law, the phrase will be
given the meaning that those sophisticated in the
law understood at the time of the enactment 
unless it is clear from the constitutional 
language that some other meaning was intended.
[Id. at 223.] 
As in Michigan Coalition, the majority in this case 
claims to find support in Justice COOLEY’S treatise on 
constitutional interpretation, in which he wrote: 
[I]t must not be forgotten, in construing our
constitutions, that in many particulars they are
but the legitimate successors of the great
charters of English liberty, whose provisions
declaratory of the rights of the subject have
acquired a well-understood meaning, which the 
people must be supposed to have had in view in
adopting them. 
We cannot understand these 
provisions unless we understand their history;
and when we find them expressed in technical
words, and words of art, we must suppose these
words to be employed in their technical sense.[8] 
6 Id. (citing 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th
ed), p 132). 
7 Id. at 223, citing Walker v Wolverine Fabricating &
Mfg, Inc, 425 Mich 586, 596; 391 NW2d 296 (1986). 
8 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p 132. 
8  
 
 
 
 
 
The majority takes this quote out of context and 
twists its meaning. 
When Justice COOLEY’S statement is 
returned to its full context, it neither supports nor 
justifies the majority’s abandonment of the people’s common 
understanding of constitutional terms for the understanding 
of those “sophisticated or learned in the law.” 
As is revealed in the full text, Justice COOLEY sought 
to convey that certain constitutional terms have technical 
or legal meaning that is known to every person, learned or 
unlearned. Regarding such terms, COOLEY suggested that it is 
unnecessary for the Court to give them a more popular or 
plainer meaning. Careful attention is warranted to Justice 
COOLEY’S language that in context reads: 
In interpreting clauses we must presume that
words have been employed in their natural and 
ordinary meaning. 
As Marshall, Ch. J., says:
The framers of the constitution, and the people
who adopted it, “must be understood to have 
employed the words in their natural sense, and to
have intended what they have said.” 
This is but 
saying that no forced or unnatural construction
is to be put upon their language; and it seems so
obvious a truism that one expects to see it
universally accepted without question; but the
attempt is made so often by interested subtlety
and ingenious refinement to induce the courts to
force from these instruments a meaning which 
their framers never held, that it frequently
becomes necessary to re-declare this fundamental
maxim. 
Narrow 
and 
technical 
reasoning 
is 
misplaced when it is brought to bear upon an
instrument framed by the people themselves, for
themselves, and designed as a chart upon which 
9  
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
every man, learned and unlearned, may be able to
trace the leading principles of government. 
But it must not be forgotten, in construing our
constitutions, that in many particulars they are
but the legitimate successors of the great
charters of English liberty, whose provisions
declaratory of the rights of the subject have
acquired a well-understood meaning, which the 
people must be supposed to have had in view in
adopting them. 
We cannot understand these 
provisions unless we understand their history;
and when we find them expressed in technical
words, and words of art, we must suppose these
words to be employed in their technical sense. 
When the Constitution speaks of an ex post facto
law, it means a law technically known by that
designation; the meaning of the phrase having
become defined in the history of constitutional
law, and being so familiar to the people that it
is not necessary to employ language of a more
popular character to designate it. The technical 
sense in these cases is the sense popularly
understood, because that is the sense fixed upon
the words in legal and constitutional history
where they have been employed for the protection
of popular rights.[9] 
This passage does not suggest that courts should defer 
to the understanding of those “learned or sophisticated in 
the law.” 
To the contrary, it simply affirms that certain 
legal and constitutional terms are so embedded in our 
constitutional law and history and their meanings so 
familiar to the people, that the court need not and must 
not attempt to redefine them. 
Clearly, Justice COOLEY does 
not suggest that the people’s common understanding of such 
terms be replaced by a “sophisticated” understanding that 
9 Id. at 130-133(emphasis added). 
10  
 
 
   
   
                                                 
 
 
 
“may be forced, by ”interested subtlety and ingenious 
refinement,” from constitutional language.10
 But this is 
the very danger that the majority’s approach presents. 
Justice COOLEY understood, as the majority refuses to 
accept, that the people do understand “the sense fixed upon 
the words in legal and constitutional history where they 
have been employed for the protection of popular rights.”11 
By 
substituting 
the 
“learned 
and 
sophisticated” 
understanding 
for 
that 
of 
the 
people’s 
common 
understanding, 
the 
majority 
invites 
future 
judicial 
distortion of the Constitution, which was made by and for 
the people, and invites “interested subtlety and ingenious 
refinement” to “force from these instruments a meaning 
which their framers never held.”12 
10 Id. at 131. 
11 Id. at 132-133. 
12 Id. at 131. The majority has also incorrectly invoked
its new rule of constitutional construction to interpret
Const 1963, art 1, § 14, calling “The right of trial by
jury” a “technical legal phrase with the meaning those
understanding the jurisprudence of this state would give
it.” Phillips v Mirac, Inc, 470 Mich 415; __ NW2d__
(2004). Previously, in 1952, this Court took a much more
straightforward approach to the same phrase when trying to
determine whether a particular statute provided for a right
to a trial by jury. Conservation Dep’t v Brown, 335 Mich
343, 346; 55 NW2d 859 (1952). The Court stated, “The
statute under which these . . . proceedings were brought is
silent on the subject of a jury. Michigan Constitution
1908, art 2, § 13, provides, as did Michigan’s previous 
11  
 
 
  
   
                                                                                                                                                 
 
 
Constitutional terms with commonly understood 
technical or legal meanings must, therefore, be 
distinguished from terms that have no meaning in the common 
vocabulary. For example, in Walker v Wolverine Fabricating 
& Mfg Co, Inc, 425 Mich 586, 596; 391 NW2d 296 (1986), the 
Court held that “[a]ppeals . . . tried de novo” was a term 
that had no meaning in the common vocabulary. The Court 
noted that scholars disagreed and constitutional convention 
delegates expressed confusion regarding the term’s 
meaning.13 
Walker then explained the appropriate approach 
to the interpretation of such terms. In order to ascertain 
the common understanding, Walker stated: 
First, one can look to the Constitutional
Convention’s Address to the People for its 
explanation of an ambiguous term.  Second, one
can survey contemporaneous judicial decision and
legal commentaries for evidence of a consensus
within the legal community regarding the meaning
of a term.14 
Constitutions, that ‘The right of trial by jury shall
remain.’ Thus the right to trial by jury is preserved in
all cases where it existed prior to the adoption of the
Constitution.” Conservation Dep’t, supra at 346. That the 
Court then considered the right as it existed in the common
law before the ratification of the 1908 constitution does 
not transform the “right of trial by jury” into a concept
too complex for nonlawyers and nonjudges, who are the vast
majority of the citizens of this state. 
13 Walker, supra at 598-599. 
14 Walker, supra at 596-597. 
12  
 
 
                                                 
 
The process of ascertaining the meaning of terms in a 
constitution that are not part of the common vocabulary 
through a survey of judicial decisions reflects the rule 
that the “framers of a Constitution are presumed to have 
knowledge of existing laws, . . . and act in reference to 
that knowledge.”15  However, the process of ascertaining the 
understanding of the framers should not be confused with 
the process of ascertaining the understanding of the 
ratifiers. 
Adhering to the common understanding of the ratifiers, 
as opposed to that of the “sophisticated in the law,” helps 
ensure that courts restrain themselves from substituting a 
different meaning of a word to suit a court’s own policy 
preferences. 
As Justice COOLEY so wisely noted, “[n]arrow 
and technical reasoning is misplaced when it is brought to 
bear upon an instrument framed by the people themselves, 
for themselves, and designed as a chart upon which every 
man, learned and unlearned, may be able to trace the 
leading principles of government.”16  It is perhaps for this 
15 Id. at 597 (citations omitted). See also, Michigan
United Conservation Clubs v Secretary of State (After
Remand), 464 Mich 359, 417; 630 NW2d 297 (2001) (WEAVER, J.,
dissenting). 
16 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p
131-132. 
13  
 
 
     
   
                                                 
 
reason that Justice COOLEY concluded that “[n]o satisfactory 
definition of the term ‘public use’ has ever been achieved 
by the courts.”17 
II. The People’s Common Understanding of “Public Use” 
From the ordinance for government of the Northwest 
Territory of 1787 to the Michigan Constitution of 1963, 
every 
document 
governing 
the 
state 
of 
Michigan 
has 
recognized the sovereign’s power of eminent domain.18
 In 
1852, this Court noted that “the whole policy of this 
country relative to roads, mills, bridges and canals, rests 
upon this single power [of eminent domain] . . . .”19  Thus, 
eminent domain has long been one of the “leading principles 
of government” that we must assume the people understood 
when they ratified each of Michigan’s constitutions.20 
17 2 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p
1139-1140 (emphasis added). 
18 See, e.g., 1787 Gov’t of Northwest Territory, art 2;
1805 Gov’t of Michigan Territory, § 2; Const 1835, art 1, §
19; Const 1850, art 15, § 9 and art 18, §14; Const 1908,
art 13, §1 and § 5; and Const 1963, art 10, § 2. 
19 Swan v Williams, 2 Mich 427, 432 (1852), quoting
Chancellor Walworth, 3 Paige R 73. 
20 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p
132. 
14  
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
While eminent domain is an attribute of sovereignty,21 
“public use” is a limitation on the exercise of the power 
of eminent domain. 
In every Michigan constitution, the 
voters of Michigan imposed a “public use” limitation on the 
exercise of the power of eminent domain.22  To ascertain the 
people’s understanding of art 10, § 2, it is to be 
remembered that: 
The primary source for ascertaining the 
meaning of a constitutional provision is to 
determined its plain meaning as understood by its 
ratifiers at the time of its adoption. 
This is 
so because “the constitution, although drawn up
by a convention, derives no vitality from its
framers, but depends for its force entirely upon
the popular vote.” 
Nevertheless, 
“to 
clarify 
meaning, 
the 
circumstances 
surrounding 
the 
adoption 
of 
a 
constitutional provision and the purpose sought
to be accomplished may be considered.” 
This 
Court cannot properly protect the mandate of the
people without examining both the origin and 
purpose of a constitutional provision, because 
provisions stripped of their context may be 
manipulated 
and 
distorted 
into 
unintended 
meanings. 
Indeed we must heed the intentions of 
the ratifiers because our constitution gains its
authority from its ratification by the people—to 
do otherwise deprives them of their right to 
govern.
[Peterman v Dep’t of Natural Resources,
446 Mich 177, 184-185; 521 NW2d 499 (1994)
(citations omitted; emphasis added).] 
21 Sinas v City of Lansing, 382 Mich 407, 411; 170 NW2d
23 (1969); Swan, supra at 431. 
22 Const 1835, art 1, § 19; Const 1850, art 15, § 9,
§14; Const 1908, art 13, §1. 
15  
 
 
 
  
                                                 
 
 
As clearly and fully expressed by this Court in 
Peterman, art 10, § 2, “has ‘acquired a well-understood 
meaning, which the people must be supposed to have had in 
view in adopting them. 
We cannot understand these 
provisions unless we understand their history; and when we 
find them expressed in technical words, and words of art, 
we must suppose these words to be employed in their 
technical sense.’”23 
To clarify the meaning understood by the ratifiers of 
art 10, § 2, Peterman cited an 1857 case discussing the 
power of and limitations on eminent domain and in a 
footnote provided the following historical context: 
23 Peterman, supra at 186 (quoting 1 Cooley,
Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p 132. The majority
misuses Peterman to try to support the majority’s elitist
holding that art 10, § 2 must be interpreted as it would
have been by person’s “sophisticated in the law.” Read in 
context above, Peterman squarely acknowledged that art 10,
§ 2 has acquired a well-understood meaning, which the
people must be supposed to have had in view. That “public
use” might be called a technical term or term of art does
not remove it from the understanding of every person. The 
majority’s perversion of the rule of common understanding
is more than merely semantic. The majority’s approach
invites “sophisticated” refinement of the people’s “right
to govern” themselves through their popular vote. It 
allows the “sophisticated and learned in the law” to,
intentionally or not, strip constitutional provisions of
their context and manipulate and distort their meaning.
See, e.g., Peterman, supra at 185. 
16  
 
 
Before 
the 
American 
Revolution 
and 
the 
drafting of the United States Constitution, the
sovereign was not only empowered to take private
property for public use, but such takings were 
almost always uncompensated. . . . Nevertheless,
the newly formed republic became increasingly
hostile to governmental infringement of property
rights as states seized loyalist lands, suspended
or remitted debts and the collection of taxes, 
printed inflationary paper money, and delayed
legal enforcement of property rights. To address 
these abuses was born the requirement that 
government may not take private property for 
public use without just compensation. [Id. at 187 
n 14.] 
Such historical perspective helps clarify the limitations 
on 
the 
exercise 
of 
eminent 
domain 
intended 
by 
the 
ratifiers. 
Peterman’s approach is entirely distinct from 
the 
majority’s 
reliance 
on 
the 
“sophisticated” 
understanding of case law addressing the public use 
limitation. 
Peterman’s commitment to ascertaining the 
common understanding of the ratifiers stands in stark 
contrast to the majority’s statement that the people’s 
common understanding is “fictionalized.” Ante at 31, n 48. 
Determining whether a particular exercise of eminent 
domain is for a constitutionally permissible “public use” 
has traditionally and necessarily involved consideration of 
the use to which the condemned property will be put. 
In 
1877, this Court held that to constitutionally exercise the 
power of eminent domain, the use must “be public in fact; 
in other words, that it should contain provisions entitling 
17  
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
 
 
 
the public to accommodations.”24
 Thus, this Court upheld 
the condemnation of land for the laying out of a public 
highway;25 the condemnation of land for the opening of a 
public avenue;26 a statute delegating condemnation authority 
to cities, villages, townships, and counties for the 
construction of airports;27 and a public school district’s 
condemnation of property for use by the school.28  In each 
of these cases the public retained the right to actually 
use the land. 
A 
statute 
authorizing 
condemnation 
that 
merely 
requires the use of condemned property to generally serve 
the public interest is insufficient to justify the exercise 
of eminent domain authority because, “every lawful business 
does this.”29  It is thus well-established that the “public 
use” requirement precludes the condemnation of property for 
24 Ryerson v Brown, 35 Mich 333, 338 (1877). 
25 Rogren v Corwin, 181 Mich 53; 147 NW 517 (1914). 
26 In re Opening of Gallagher Ave, 300 Mich 309, 312; 1
NW2d 553 (1942). 
27 In re Petition of City of Detroit for Condemnation 
of Lands for Airport, 308 Mich 480; 14 NW2d 140 (1944). 
28 Union School Dist of the City of Jackson v Starr
Commonwealth for Boys, 322 Mich 165; 33 NW2d 807 (1948). 
29 Ryerson, supra at 339. 
18  
 
 
      
        
                                                 
 
 
private use even if the private use will generally benefit 
the public.30 
“The 
public 
use 
implies 
a 
possession,
occupation, and enjoyment of the land by the
public at large, or by public agencies; and due
protection to the rights of private property will
preclude the government from seizing it in the
hands of the owner, and turning it over to 
another, on vague grounds of public benefit, to
spring from the more profitable use to which the
latter may devote it. [Portage Twp Bd of Health v
Van Hoesen, 87 Mich 533, 538; 49 NW 894 (1891),
quoting Cooley, Const Lim (6th ed) p 654.] 
This Court has held, therefore, that condemnation of 
land for a rail spur serving a single private company was 
an unconstitutional exercise of condemnation power because 
the private company could control its use and exclude the 
public.31
 Similarly, this Court has held that a statute 
authorizing condemnation of property to provide a private 
landowner access to his landlocked private property was 
unconstitutional.32 
Ultimate private ownership of lands proposed for 
condemnation, however, does not necessarily render the 
taking of land unconstitutional under the “public use” 
requirement. This Court has upheld the exercise of eminent 
30 See, e.g., Pere Marquette R Co v United States 
Gypsum Co, 154 Mich 290; 117 NW 733 (1908). 
31 Pere Marquette, supra at 300. 
32 Tolksdorf v Griffith, 464 Mich 1, 9; 626 NW2d 163
(2001). 
19  
 
 
 
                                                 
 
  
 
domain involving lands that remain in private ownership 
(albeit new private ownership) where the public retains the 
right to use the lands taken. 
In every instance of turnpike, plank road,
bridge, ferry, and canal companies, [eminent 
domain] has been employed, as well as those of
railroads. All this class of incorporations have
been enacted upon the hypothesis that the lands
taken for these purposes were taken for public 
use, and not for private endowment . . . . The
right to purchase and hold lands for the purposes
of the road, being a right delegated in virtue of
the 
eminent 
domain 
of 
the 
government, 
and 
derogatory to those of the citizen whose property
is condemned, must be construed as conferring no
right to hold the property in derogation of the
purposes for which it was taken. [Swan, supra at 
439-440 (emphasis added).] 
Thus, this Court upheld a statute providing for the 
appropriation of private property for a railroad designed 
to provide public travel33 and a statute authorizing the 
condemnation of property for an interstate bridge available 
for public travel.34
 In these cases, ultimate private 
ownership of condemned land did not offend the “public use” 
limitation even though the owner would profit from its 
ownership, because the owner was and could be compelled to 
33 Swan, supra. (Swan involved the interpretation of
the eminent domain provisions of the United States
Constitution and the Ordinance of 1787 governing the
Northwest Territory.) 
34 Detroit International Bridge Co v American Seed Co,
249 Mich 289; 228 NW 791 (1930). 
20  
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
 
 
continue to devote the condemned land to the public use for 
which it was condemned.35 
While 
this 
Court’s 
evaluation 
of 
whether 
a 
condemnation is for a “public use” has traditionally 
involved consideration of the public’s use or control over 
the 
use 
of 
the 
property 
condemned, 
this 
Court 
has 
considered the government purposes to be achieved by the 
condemnation. 
For 
example, 
this 
Court 
held 
the 
transportation of oil throughout the state to be a valid 
legislative purpose and upheld the constitutionality of a 
statute allowing the condemnation of lands for a pipeline 
to serve that purpose.36
 There the Court concluded, 
however, that the pipeline was a “public use benefiting the 
people of the State of Michigan” and emphasized that the 
state retained control of the pipeline allowing it to 
ensure its devotion to public use.37
 The Court has also 
excused the absence of ultimate public use or control over 
lands taken and then transferred to a private entity in 
cases involving the removal of slums and blight that 
35 Swan, supra at 436, and Detroit International Bridge 
Co, supra at 299. 
36 Lakehead Pipe Line Co, Inc v Dehn, 340 Mich 25, 36;
64 NW2d 903 (1954). 
37 Id. at 37 and 40. 
21  
 
 
 
   
   
                                                 
 
 
endangered public health, morals, safety, and welfare.38  In 
these cases, the Court reasoned that “slum clearance is in 
any 
event 
the 
one 
controlling 
purpose 
of 
the 
condemnation.”39 
Until Poletown, this Court’s decisions consistently 
distinguished “public use,” as that concept limits the 
exercise of eminent domain, from private uses and uses that 
only 
generally 
advance 
the 
public 
interest. 
This 
distinction was readily traceable in the law and must be 
assumed to have been well understood by Michigan citizens, 
the vast majority of whom are not lawyers and are not 
“sophisticated in the law.” 
The distinction between a 
“public use” and uses that are strictly private or only 
generally beneficial to the public protects against the 
arbitrary exercise of the “extraordinary” sovereign power 
of eminent domain.40 
Wayne 
County’s 
purpose 
supporting 
each 
of 
the 
condemnation proceedings at issue is the creation of a 
contiguous land mass of approximately 1,300 acres for the 
38 See, e.g., In re Slum Clearance, 331 Mich 714; 50
NW2d 340 (1951), Sinas v City of Lansing, 382 Mich 407; 170
NW2d 23 (1969), and City of Center Line v Michigan Bell Tel 
Co, 387 Mich 260; 196 NW2d 144 (1972). 
39 In re Slum Clearnace, supra at 72 (emphasis in
original). 
40 Swan, supra at 433. 
22  
 
 
 
 
 
development of the Pinnacle Aeropark Project. 
The county 
states that contiguity is necessary to attract investors 
and further that the development will create thousands of 
jobs and tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue, while 
broadening its primarily industrial tax base. 
However laudable these goals are, the facts remain 
that Wayne County intends to transfer these properties to 
private entities. 
These entities will be under no 
obligation to let the public in their doors or even on 
their lands. 
There is no way to characterize the county’s 
transfer of dominion over these properties as accommodating 
“public use.” 
Further, Wayne County will not retain 
control over the properties or enterprises to ensure their 
devotion to public use. 
Nor can it be said that a 
controlling purpose of the condemnations is the removal of 
blight or slums that endanger the public health, morals, 
safety, and welfare. 
This case is indeed a very 
straightforward example of government taking one person’s 
property for the sole benefit of another. 
III. The Majority Abandons the Common Understanding 
The majority’s application of its “sophisticated in 
the law” approach to this case is unnecessary and subject 
to abuse: it invites the erosion of the limitations placed 
on the exercise of eminent domain. 
As noted by Justice 
23  
 
 
 
 
                                                 
 
COOLEY, “[a] little investigation will show that any 
definition [of ‘public use’] attempted would exclude some 
subjects that properly should be included in, and include 
some subjects that must be excluded from, the operation of 
the words ‘public use’ . . . .”41
 Nevertheless, the 
majority opines that 
transfer of condemned property to a private
entity, seen through the eyes of an individual 
sophisticated 
in 
the 
law 
at 
the 
time 
of 
ratification of our 1963 Constitution, would be
appropriate in one of three contexts: (1) where
‘public necessity of the extreme sort’ requires
collective action; (2) where the property remains
subject to public oversight after transfer to a
private entity; and (3) where the property
selected is due to “facts of independent public
significance,” rather than the interests of the
private 
entity 
to 
which 
the 
property 
is 
eventually transferred. 42 
The majority’s categorization of Michigan case law 
addressing transfers of property to private entities is 
better suited to articles in law journals that have no 
force of law than it is to judicial opinions. 
If, instead 
of the common understanding of “public use,” future courts 
rely on “facts of independent public significance” to 
determine whether a condemnation is for a “public use,” 
then it is easy to imagine how the people’s limit on the 
41 2 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p
1139-1140. 
42 Ante at 39 (citing Poletown, supra, at 674-681 (RYAN,
J., dissenting)). 
24  
 
 
 
 
                                                 
exercise of eminent domain might be eroded. For example, a 
municipality could declare the lack of a two-car garage to 
be evidence of blight, as has been attempted in Lakewood, 
Ohio43 or justify condemning a small brake repair business 
so that the property can be used for a hardware store, as 
has been attempted in Mesa, Arizona.44
 The majority’s 
“sophisticated in the law” approach makes the intended 
protections from such encroachments on protected rights 
less certain because it moves away from the constitutional 
text. 
The majority’s categories are based on what the 
majority 
has 
determined 
is 
the 
“sophisticated” 
understanding of case law. 
However, “sophisticated” 
categorizations should not replace the traditional approach 
to ascertaining the common understanding of the ratifiers. 
Justice COOLEY aptly summarized the “public use” limitations 
as follows: 
[T]he 
public 
use 
implies 
a 
possession,
occupation, and enjoyment of the land by the
public at large, or by public agencies; and due
protection to the rights of private property will
preclude the government from seizing it in the
hands of the owner, and turning it over to 
another on vague grounds of public benefit to 
43 Engage, Berman and Beyond: The Misuse of Blight
Laws and Eminent Domain, (Vol 5, Issue 1). See also, CBS
News, 60 Minutes, September 28, 2003. 
44 CBS News, 60 Minutes, September 28, 2003. 
25  
 
 
 
  
                                                 
 
spring from the more profitable use to which the
latter may devote it. 
We find ourselves somewhat at sea, however,
when we undertake to define, in the light of the
judicial decisions, what constitutes a public
use.[45] 
Justice COOLEY’S scholarly treatise follows this statement 
with a review of judicial decisions from various states 
regarding the meaning of “public use” and concludes that 
“public use” “has a meaning much controlled by necessity, 
and somewhat different from that which it generally 
bears.”46 
Contrary to the majority’s suggestion, Justice Cooley 
does not justify invoking a cadre of legal “sophisticates” 
to help ascertain the meaning of “public use,” rather it 
reveals that “public use” is indeed a constitutional term 
that 
must 
be 
understood 
not 
in 
its 
“more 
popular 
character,” but rather in “the sense fixed upon the words 
in legal and constitutional history where they have been 
employed for the protection of popular rights.”47  The sense 
45 2 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p
1129. 
46 Id at 1138. 
47 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p
132-133. A more “popular” sense of “public use” might be
derived by concluding that the term required the public’s
actual physical use of the land or by combining lay
dictionary definitions of “public” and “use.” These 
26  
 
 
   
   
 
 
                                                                                                                                                 
fixed upon the term in legal and constitutional history is, 
in Justice COOLEY’S words, “familiar to the people.”48 
The 
facts 
of 
each 
case 
involving 
a 
proposed 
condemnation should be considered in light of the “public 
use” limitation on the exercise of eminent domain as the 
limitation would have been commonly understood by the 
people, 
learned 
and 
unlearned, 
who 
ratified 
the 
Constitution. 
This ensures that the “sense fixed upon the 
words in the legal and constitutional history” continue to 
serve to protect the “popular rights.”49 
Contrary to the majority’s suggestion, the people’s 
common understanding is not “fictionalized.” Ante at 31, n 
48. The people who ratified art 10, § 2 do understand the 
limitations they imposed on the exercise of eminent domain. 
As stated by Justice Cooley: 
it is always an invasion of liberty and of right
when 
one 
is 
compelled 
to 
part 
with 
his 
possessions on grounds which are only colorable.
A person may be very unreasonable in insisting on
retaining his lands; but half the value of free
institutions consists in the fact that they
protect every man in doing what he shall choose, 
definitions would not necessarily reflect the full
protections intended by the ratifiers of art 10, § 2 when
they limited the exercise of eminent domain. 
48 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p
132. 
49 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p
132-133. 
27  
 
 
without liability to be called account for his 
reasons or motives, so long as he is doing only
that which he has a right to do. [Ryerson, supra
at 342.] 
Nevertheless, the majority substitutes the people’s common 
understanding with that of those “sophisticated in the 
law.” 
Apparently, the current majority does not share 
Justice COOLEY’S respect for every person’s understanding of 
their 
most 
basic 
and 
established 
constitutional 
protections. 
IV. Conclusion 
I agree with the majority’s result and its decision to 
overrule Poletown. Poletown wrongly abandoned the express 
constitutional limitation on the exercise of eminent domain 
power when it held that land can be taken by the government 
and transferred to a private entity upon the mere showing 
that 
the 
economy 
will 
generally 
benefit 
from 
the 
condemnation. 
For the reasons stated by the majority, I 
agree that this decision should apply retroactively. 
Thus 
Wayne County may not condemn the properties of the 
defendants at issue. 
I dissent from the majority’s reliance on its recently 
created and elitist rule of constitutional interpretation 
that gives constitutional terms the meaning that those 
28  
 
 
 
 
                                                 
“versed” and “sophisticated in the law” would have given it 
at the time of the Constitution’s ratification. 
I also dissent from the majority’s application of this 
new rule to the facts of this case. 
While the majority’s 
application of its method of interpretation reaches the 
correct 
result 
in 
this 
case, 
this 
new 
rule 
of 
constitutional interpretation perverts the long-established 
and primary rule that constitutional terms are to be 
interpreted 
as 
they 
are 
understood 
by 
the 
citizen 
ratifiers, the vast majority of whom are not lawyers or 
judges and are not “sophisticated in the law.” 
The 
majority’s new rule of constitutional interpretation opens 
the door, as Justice Cooley warned, for “interested 
subtlety and ingenious refinement” to be forced on the 
Constitution’s language—constitutional language that the 
people framed and adopted for themselves “as a chart upon 
which every man, learned and unlearned, may be able to 
trace the leading principles of government.”50 
Where a legal and constitutional term is so embedded 
in our constitutional law and history and so familiar to 
the people as to be commonly understood, this Court should 
not redefine it through the eyes of those “sophisticated in 
50 1 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p
131-132. 
29  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
the law,” but should give it the common understanding that 
the people who ratified the Constitution would have given 
the term. 
Elizabeth A. Weaver 
CAVANAGH, J. 
I concur only with respect to section I. 
Michael F. Cavanagh 
30  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
_______________________________ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
_______________________________ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
_______________________________ 
 
 
S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N  
SUPREME COURT  
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124070 
EDWARD HATHCOCK, 
Defendant-Appellant. 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124071 
AARON T. SPECK and DONALD E. SPECK, 
Defendants-Appellants. 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124072 
AUBINS SERVICE, INC AND DAVID R.
YORK, Trustee of the DAVID R. YORK
REVOCABLE LIVING TRUST, 
Defendants-Appellants. 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
v 
No. 124073 
JEFFREY J. KOMISAR, 
Defendant-Appellant. 
_______________________________ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124074 
ROBERT WARD and LELA WARD, 
Defendants-Appellants, 
and 
HENRY Y. COOLEY, 
Defendant. 
_______________________________ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124075 
MRS. JAMES GRIZZLE and MICHELLE 
A. BALDWIN, 
Defendants-Appellants, 
and 
RAMIE FAKHOURY 
Defendant. 
_______________________________ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
2  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
_______________________________ 
 
 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124076 
STEPHANIE A. KOMISAR, 
Defendant-Appellant. 
_______________________________ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124077 
THOMAS L. GOFF, NORMA GOFF, MARK
A. BARKER, JR., and KATHLEEN A. BARKER, 
Defendants-Appellants. 
_______________________________ 
COUNTY OF WAYNE, 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
v 
No. 124078 
VINCENT FINAZZO, 
Defendant-Appellant, 
and 
AUBREY L. GREGORY and DULCINA 
GREGORY, 
Defendants. 
CAVANAGH, J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part). 
3  
 
 
 
 
 
 
I concur with the majority that Poletown Neighborhood 
Council v Detroit, 410 Mich 616; 304 NW2d 455 (1981), 
should be overruled. 
I also concur with section I of 
Justice Weaver’s partial concurrence and partial dissent. 
I write separately, however, because I believe that the 
analysis offered by Justice Ryan in his dissent in Poletown 
offers the best rationale to explain why I believe Poletown 
should 
be 
overruled. 
Further, 
I 
dissent 
from 
the 
majority’s conclusion that today’s decision should be 
applied retroactively. 
Contrary to the majority, I would 
apply today’s decision prospectively only. 
This Court has determined that various factors must be 
considered when determining whether a decision should have 
retroactive application. In Pohutski v City of Allen Park, 
465 Mich 675, 696; 641 NW2d 219 (2002), this Court stated 
that these “factors are: 
(1) the purpose to be served by 
the new rule, (2) the extent of reliance on the old rule, 
and (3) the effect of retroactivity on the administration 
of justice.” 
This Court also “recognized an additional 
threshold question whether the decision clearly established 
a new principle of law.” 
Id. 
Further, this Court has 
adopted a thoughtful approach to retroactivity to minimize 
chaos and maximize justice. 
See Tebo v Havlik, 418 Mich 
350, 360, 361, 363; 343 NW2d 181 (1984) (opinion by 
4  
 
 
 
Brickley, J.; Lindsey v Harper Hosp, 455 Mich 56, 68; 564 
NW2d 861 (1997) (“Prospective application of a holding is 
appropriate when the holding overrules settled precedent . 
. . .”). 
The key factors in this case are Wayne County’s 
reliance on this Court’s decision in Poletown and the 
effect retroactive application will have on Wayne County, 
as well as other communities that relied on Poletown. 
In 
brief, Wayne County has spent approximately $50 million on 
the project at issue in this case in reliance on this 
Court’s decision in Poletown. 
While I agree with the 
majority that Poletown improperly interpreted and applied 
the law, Wayne County’s reliance on this Court’s decision 
in Poletown is clear and I do not believe that Wayne County 
and its taxpayers should be penalized because the county 
followed this Court’s guidance. 
The majority states that “Wayne County’s course of 
conduct in the present case was no doubt shaped by 
Poletown’s disregard for constitutional limits on the 
exercise of the power of eminent domain and the license 
that 
opinion 
appeared 
to 
grant 
to 
state 
and 
local 
authorities.” 
Ante at 48 (emphasis added). 
The Poletown 
opinion did not appear to grant power to state and local 
authorities, it actually did so. 
Although we now overrule 
5  
 
 
 
 
 
Poletown 
because 
it 
incorrectly 
interpreted 
our 
Constitution, there is no doubt that Wayne County’s actions 
were a direct result of this Court’s decision in Poletown 
and were proper under the reasoning and holding in that 
decision. 
I understand that prospective application would mean 
that defendants must accept just compensation in exchange 
for their properties. 
In an ideal situation, no one, 
including defendants, would have to sell property unless 
they wanted to sell. 
However, in examining the factors 
that this Court considers when determining whether a 
decision should have retroactive application, I cannot 
penalize Wayne County and its taxpayers because the county 
followed this Court’s prior direction. 
Therefore, while I 
concur with the majority in overruling Poletown, I dissent 
with 
respect 
to 
the 
retroactive 
application 
of 
the 
majority’s decision. 
Michael F. Cavanagh
Marilyn Kelly 
6