Opinion ID: 846036
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Gregg's Reasoning is Erroneous

Text: In our view, there are several fatal flaws in the analysis offered by Gregg. It failed to pay serious attention to the plain meaning of the text of the highway exception and it made other unpersuasive arguments. First, the Gregg majority inappropriately relied on the doctrine of legislative acquiescence for the proposition that prior Court of Appeals decisions that had broadly construed the highway exception to encompass all shoulders were consistent with the Legislature's intent. This doctrine of legislative acquiescence is founded on the notion that decisions that have not been legislatively overturned are tacitly approved by the Legislature. The doctrine is highly disfavored in this Court's jurisprudence, which prescribes that courts are to discern the Legislature's intent `from its words, not from its silence.' [40] That the Legislature did not amend the existing language of the highway exception in response to earlier Court of Appeals cases does not suggest that the Legislature believed those cases were rightly decided. Moreover, unlike the Gregg majority, we decline to rely on the Court's conception of motorists' common experience with road shoulders as a proper canon of statutory construction. Were this Court competent to make such a normative judgment about motorists' common experience, it would be particularly inappropriate to apply that judgment here where it departs from the plain statutory language used by the Legislature. This subtle appeal to common experience arguably substituted the Gregg majority's policy preference for the policy preference of the Legislature. In analyzing the highway exception, we must be governed by the statutory language. [41] Unlike the Gregg Court, we also decline to consult the definitions contained in the MVC to inform our construction regarding the scope of the highway exception. Closer inspection of the MVC reveals why Gregg's reliance on an unrelated statute to construe another is a perilous endeavor to be avoided by our courts. The GTLA expressly incorporates only one definition from the MVC. Section 5, also known as the motor vehicle exception, refers the reader to the definition of owner in the MVC. [42] The absence of any other reference to the MVC in the GTLA, coupled with the explicit incorporation of owner in the motor vehicle exception indicates that the Legislature intended to limit the applicability of the MVC in the GTLA. [43] Even more troubling than the Gregg majority's frank violation of the rules of statutory construction was the fact that it used provisions of the MVC in a highly selective manner. One of the crucial questions before the Gregg Court was whether the paved shoulder is `designed for vehicular travel.' [44] Gregg preferentially selected and relied on only some of the MVC defined terms to answer that question. The Gregg majority cited the MVC definitions of roadway and highway to support its conclusion that a shoulder was part of the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel, but curiously failed to rely on the most relevant term defined in the MVCshoulder. One can only speculate why the Gregg majority brushed aside this term, which the MVC actually defines as that portion of the highway contiguous to the roadway generally extending the contour of the roadway, not designed for vehicular travel but maintained for the temporary accommodation of disabled or stopped vehicles otherwise permitted on the roadway.  [45] Justice Griffin's dissent reminded the majority of this fact, to which the majority unconvincingly responded that what it termed another section of the MVC stated, `Shoulder' means that portion of a highway or street on either side of the roadway which is normally snowplowed for the safety and convenience of vehicular traffic.  [46] It is not clear why the Gregg majority believed this provision negated the MVC's specific definition of shoulder, particularly because this provision does not support the conclusion that a shoulder is designed for vehicular travel, whereas the MVC's definition of a shoulder specifically states that a shoulder is not so designed. Had the Gregg majority relied on the most relevant definition, the one found in the MVC, it could not have reached the result it did. [47] Once the Gregg majority inappropriately committed itself to using the language of the MVC rather than construing the actual words of the highway exception, the MVC should have pressed the Court to reach the opposite conclusion. More important, the GTLA provides its own definition of highway. [48] There is no apparent ambiguity in the GTLA's definition of highway that would warrant resort to another statute's definition of the same term. Hence, the Gregg majority's use of the MVC definition was inconsistent with our canons of statutory construction. In sum, the Gregg majority's conclusion that a shoulder is designed for vehicular travel and the reasons supporting that conclusion are entirely unpersuasive and must be abandoned. [49]