Opinion ID: 2086381
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Critical-Service Status of the Complaining Employee

Text: Also reading  2(1) alone, the second interpretation focuses sole attention on the critical-service status of the complaining employee. Under this interpretation, regardless of the critical-service nature of the interested municipal department/employer, if the complainant constitutes more than one (i) county (ii) department (iii) employee (iv) subject to the hazards of police work, then that particular complainant will be considered a  3 public police    department employee whose dispute may be resolved through initiation of Act 312 proceedings. Literal satisfaction of the  2(1) scope criterion that the county department employee be subject to the hazards of police work is thought to engage the totality of inquiry without the necessity of considering whether invocation of the act's proceedings to resolve that party's dispute would effectuate the whole act's intent to avert critical-service work stoppages. Under this interpretation, the two individuals employed by the hypothetical county library in a capacity subject to the hazards of police work could invoke the act's significant benefits as being requisite to the high morale of such [county library] employees and the efficient operation of such [county library] departments for averting critical-service work stoppages. Sole emphasis is placed on the complaining employees' situation regardless of the interested department's/employer's principal function or character. It is evident that the parties, the MERC and the Court of Appeals have each adopted this interpretation to determine whether these prosecutor's investigators may invoke the benefits of Act 312 to resolve their dispute by solely concentrating on the perceived polestar whether the investigators are within the act's  2(1) literal scope as subject to the hazards [of county department employees engaged as police officers]. That the parties and instant lower tribunals have exclusively devoted their energies to this single interpretive pursuit is borne out by the parties' testimony and arguments, MERC's express holding that [a]lthough [these prosecutor's investigators] do not carry the title of `police officer',    they are clearly subject to the hazards of police work and thus within the scope of Act 312, Oakland County, supra, 331-332, and the Court of Appeals ruling in affirmance that MERC applied the correct statutory standard in its decision below [i.e., the sole statutory precondition for invoking Act 312 other than employment by a municipal or county department, is that the employees be `either police officers or subject to the hazards of police officers'], Petition of Metropolitan Council 23, supra, 570. The occasion of such narrow analytic focus is certainly not surprising since it has likewise been employed by others ÔÇö including other Court of Appeals panels, the MERC and the Attorney General ÔÇö in seeking to answer whether similarly situated complainants may invoke Act 312. [9] As succinctly stated in Detroit v General Foods Corp, 39 Mich App 180, 190; 197 NW2d 315 (1972): When a court reviews an administrative tribunal decision, it reviews the original record to determine if the decision is supported by competent, material and substantial evidence, and will overturn a decision only when such decision is contrary to law, or is not supported by the necessary competent, material and substantial evidence. (Emphasis in original.) See Const 1963, art 6,  28; MCL 24.306, subds (d) and (f); MSA 3.560(206), subds (d) and (f). See also MCL 423.23(2)(e); MSA 17.454(25)(2)(e), MCL 423.242; MSA 17.455(42). In reviewing the MERC finding in this matter that the prosecutor's investigators are clearly subject to the hazards of police work and thus within the scope of Act 312, Oakland County, supra, 331-332, the Court of Appeals stated that it would not reverse MERC's decision if it is supported by competent, material and substantial evidence on the whole record. Petition of Metropolitan Council 23, supra, 571. After reviewing the whole record, the panel held that the evidence adduced at the MERC hearing substantially supports MERC's conclusion that the investigators are subject to the same hazards confronting police officers and may invoke compulsory arbitration under Act 312. Id., 572-573. This conclusion apparently proceeded from the panel's notion that the sole statutory precondition for invoking Act 312, other than employment by a municipal or county department, is that the employees be `either police officers or subject to the hazards of police officers.' Id., 570. We agree in part and disagree in part with the rulings of both the MERC and the Court of Appeals. Cognizant of our limited standard of review of administrative factual findings summarized in General Foods Corp, supra, as to the limited factual finding that these investigators are subject to the hazards [of police work], we agree that this ruling is supported by competent, material and substantial evidence on the whole record. Guided by this facet of our restrictive standard of review, we afford due deference to administrative expertise and decline to invade the province of exclusive administrative fact-finding by displacing an agency's choice between two reasonably differing views. Michigan Employment Relations Comm v Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Inc, 393 Mich 116, 124; 223 NW2d 283 (1974). Beyond this factual ruling, however, we hold that both the MERC and the Court of Appeals erred as a matter of law in permitting these investigators to initiate Act 312 proceedings simply because they are county department employees subject to the hazards of police work. Both tribunals erred in merely addressing whether six isolated words found in the  2(1) scope provision had been literally satisfied without any consideration given to the harmonious and consistent effectuation of the legislative intent underlying the act as a whole to avert critical-service work stoppages. Fulfillment of these six isolated words is not, as the Court of Appeals apparently thought, the sole statutory precondition for invoking Act 312. Petition of Metropolitan Council 23, supra, 570. Rather than engaging the totality of inquiry, we regard these literal terms of  2(1) as merely providing an isolated benchmark for ascertaining whether a complainant comes within the act's literal scope as distinguished from its conditio sine qua non ÔÇö the act's intendment. Conditio praecedens adimpleri debet priusquam sequatur effectus. To terminate inquiry at the isolated juncture of these six words blinks the reality that Act 312 must be considered as a whole. The particular effect to be attached to the finding that a complainant is subject to the hazards of police work must be derived from the whole act, the nature of the treated subject matter, and the purpose or intention of the promulgating body so as to ultimately effectuate the manifest legislative intent and to avoid unintended, absurd or unjust results. Guided by these time-honored notions of statutory construction, we must conclude that in disregarding the legislative intent of the act as a whole, the lower tribunals chose to exalt form over substance, defying the maxim that a thing within the letter is not within the statute, unless within the intention. Common Council of Detroit, supra, 542. As in the example of the two county library complainants, permitting these investigators' dispute to achieve Act 312 status simply because they are Oakland County Prosecutor's Department employees subject to the hazards of police work would be neither consonant with sound reason nor good judgment in effectuating the legislative intent to avert critical-service work stoppages. Act 312 was legislatively intended to provide an alternate, expeditious, effective and binding procedure for the resolution of interest disputes and the aversion of otherwise proscribed critical-service strikes which, because of the vital, unique and essential character of police and fire services, would likely cause an imminent, serious threat to the public order, safety and welfare as well as undermine the high morale and efficient operation of the subject departments. Because of the non-critical-service nature of the Oakland County Prosecutor's Department, we are unpersuaded that permitting these 17 prosecutor's investigators to invoke the supplemental provisions of Act 312 would effectuate this legislative intent in either any of its specifics or as a whole although the investigators are arguably subject to the hazards of county department employees engaged as police. We cannot perceive that invoking Act 312 to resolve this dispute would be either requisite to the high morale of [the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office] employees or requisite to the efficient operation of [the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office]. Like any other public employee of this state, these prosecutor's investigators are proscribed from striking by the supplementary dictates of PERA. Thus, they may resort to its provisions for labor dispute protections in general without the necessity of invoking Act 312's alternate expeditious, effective and binding procedure for the resolution of disputes. Because of the principal function of the Oakland County Prosecutor's Department, even if these prosecutor's investigators were to evade PERA and engage in an illegal strike upon the occasion of an impasse, we are unpersuaded that, prior to the obtainment of court relief pursuant to PERA, such illegal activity would invade the public order, safety and welfare and endanger the community in a manner even similar to that contemplated by Act 312. Given the Prosecutor's Department's practical duties, permitting these prosecutor's investigators to invoke the benefits of Act 312 would neither prevent the dire consequences of strikes or work stoppages by certain public employees, Dearborn, supra, 247 (opinion of LEVIN, J.), nor engage a practical response to the impasse experienced from time to time in collective bargaining where the public welfare cannot endure the impact of a work stoppage while awaiting the resolution of problems through normal negotiations, Dearborn, supra, 292-293 (opinion of WILLIAMS, J.). Furthermore, unlike the successful argument for inclusion of emergency medical service personnel in  2(1), we cannot perceive that [t]he service [these 17 Oakland County Prosecutor's Department investigators] provide is as valuable to the public as that provided by other fire or police department employees, and a disruptive labor dispute among these employees would be just as detrimental to the public welfare as a strike by policemen or firemen. Analysis of 1976 House Bill 5371, supra. Neither clinical construction nor the letter of the statute nor its rhetorical framework should be permitted to defeat the act's manifest intent and purpose gathered from consideration of the act as a whole.