Opinion ID: 4572792
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the epga: history, text, and context

Text: The EPGA’s history is a good place to begin because, in this case, it helps illuminate the statute’s meaning.2 In the summer of 1943, a little less than two years before the EPGA’s enactment, Detroit experienced a violent riot sparked by racial tensions. Thousands of soldiers entered the city, 34 individuals were killed, property damages amounted to $2 million, and countless injuries occurred. Capeci & Wilkerson, Layered Violence: The Detroit Rioters of 1943 (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1991), pp 17-18. One of the most difficult problems officials faced was how to authorize the use of federal troops to control the rioting. See Shogan & Craig, The Detroit Race Riot: A Study in Violence (New York: Da Capo Press, 1976), pp 68-76. Although thousands of police officers had been deployed, officials believed that something more was needed. Id. at 70. In the midst of the crisis, Governor Harry Kelly was informed that martial law had to be declared in order to obtain federal assistance. Id. at 75-76. That would have required suspending all local and state laws in the city, depriving the city council and police departments of all authority, and suspending state-government operations in the area. Id. Understandably, Governor Kelly was reluctant to take that step. Id. Instead, without relying on any apparent authority, he proclaimed a “ ‘state of emergency,’ ” authorizing the use of the “State Troops”—at that time, an “inexperienced” and “volunteer organization 2 It is true that we generally do not look to contemporaneous history when interpreting a statute unless its meaning is doubtful. See People v Hall, 391 Mich 175, 191; 215 NW2d 166 (1974). I believe the correct interpretation of the EPGA—that it does not encompass public health—is not doubtful. But given the significance of the issues at stake in this case, and that a majority of a Court of Appeals panel, the Court of Claims, and my colleagues here have all reached a different conclusion, it is worth examining whether the historical context supports or undermines my conclusion. 3 set up . . . to replace National Guard units called into federal service during” World War II. Id. at 76-77, 79. In his proclamation, Governor Kelly also banned the sale of alcohol, closed “[a]ll places of amusement,” established a curfew, and prohibited assembly and the carrying of weapons. Kelly, Declaration and Proclamation (June 21, 1943), reprinted in The Detroit Race Riot, pp 144-145. Later the same day, federal officials found a way to offer assistance short of declaring martial law. The Detroit Race Riot, p 80. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a presidential proclamation, and army troops moved in to bring the situation under control. Id. at 80-82, 153-154. When the EPGA was introduced and enacted in 1945, it was well known that the legislation stemmed from the recent race riot and the perceived inability to order troops without declaring martial law; indeed, when it was first introduced in the Legislature, it was dubbed the “Anti-Riot Bill.”3 The text reflects this emphasis. The first section is the most important for our purposes. Its first sentence describes when and how the statute may be invoked: During times of great public crisis, disaster, rioting, catastrophe, or similar public emergency within the state, or reasonable apprehension of 3 See Senators Offer Anti-Riot Bill, Detroit Free Press (April 7, 1945), p 2 (“A bill to equip the Governor with authority to deal with rioting without declaring martial law was introduced in the Senate . . . . [Senator] Hittle said the bill was proposed by State Police Commissioner Oscar H. Olander and results from experience in the 1943 Detroit riot.”); see also Governor Gets Great Powers: Can Suppress Civil Disorders Quickly, The HeraldPress (May 26, 1945), p 2 (noting that the law gives “wide powers to suppress civil disorder without proclaiming martial law” and “was requested by state police as an aftermath of the Detroit race riots” due to their discovery that “there was no middle ground legally between minor laws forbidding unlawful assembly and the drastic ordering of martial law, suspending civil rights”); The Sebewaing Blade (May 4, 1945), p 2 (“This measure is designed to remedy a legal handicap which arose in the Detroit race riots two years ago . . . .”). 4 immediate danger of a public emergency of that kind, when public safety is imperiled, either upon application of the mayor of a city, sheriff of a county, or the commissioner of the Michigan state police or upon his or her own volition, the governor may proclaim a state of emergency and designate the area involved. [MCL 10.31(1) (emphasis added).] The provision for proclaiming “a state of emergency” very clearly reflects Governor Kelly’s declaration, which used the same term (albeit without any statutory authorization to do so). The second two sentences pertain to the scope of the Governor’s authority to address an emergency situation once an emergency has been declared: After making the proclamation or declaration, the governor may promulgate reasonable orders, rules, and regulations as he or she considers necessary to protect life and property or to bring the emergency situation within the affected area under control. Those orders, rules, and regulations may include, but are not limited to, providing for the control of traffic, including public and private transportation, within the area or any section of the area; designation of specific zones within the area in which occupancy and use of buildings and ingress and egress of persons and vehicles may be prohibited or regulated; control of places of amusement and assembly and of persons on public streets and thoroughfares; establishment of a curfew; control of the sale, transportation, and use of alcoholic beverages and liquors; and control of the storage, use, and transportation of explosives or inflammable materials or liquids deemed to be dangerous to public safety. [Id.] The list of possible emergency orders comes, in large part, from the 1943 proclamation. Both speak of controlling “places of amusement” and “assembly,” and both contain provisions for curfews and prohibitions on the “sale . . . of alcoholic beverages.” And as originally passed, the EPGA also allowed the Governor “control of the possession, sale, carrying and use of firearms [and] other dangerous weapons,” 1945 PA 302(1), repealed by 2006 PA 546, just as the proclamation had prohibited the carrying of “arms or weapons of any description,” Kelly, Declaration and Proclamation (June 21, 1943), reprinted in The 5 Detroit Race Riot, p 145. Thus, the very structure of the act and its key terms largely reflect the 1943 proclamation. The second section also describes the powers the Governor wields once an emergency has been declared, but as the Governor’s counsel conceded at argument, this section does not address or expand the types of situations that qualify as emergencies: It is hereby declared to be the legislative intent to invest the governor with sufficiently broad power of action in the exercise of the police power of the state to provide adequate control over persons and conditions during such periods of impending or actual public crisis or disaster. The provisions of this act shall be broadly construed to effectuate this purpose. [MCL 10.32 (emphasis added).] The final section makes it a misdemeanor to violate rules or orders prescribed pursuant to the statute. MCL 10.33. The dispositive issue here is whether this statute applies in the sphere of public health generally or to an epidemic like COVID-19 in particular. The statute provides a list of events—for example, disaster, rioting, and catastrophe—justifying a declaration of emergency. MCL 10.31(1). But tacked to the end of the list is the stipulation that the Governor may take such action only “when public safety is imperiled.” The Attorney General in this case has correctly recognized that it modifies the entire series that precedes it. See generally Scalia & Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts (St. Paul: Thomson/West, 2012), p 147 (straightforward, parallel constructions of nouns in a series are normally all modified by postpositive modifiers). In other words, not just any catastrophe will do; it must be one that imperils “public safety.” The Governor reads “public safety” expansively to encompass “public health.” She does not provide a source defining this exact term, however. By itself, the ordinary 6 meaning of “safety” at the time the EPGA was enacted in 1945 might lend some support to the Governor’s reading. The dictionary she cites defined safety as the “[c]ondition of being safe; freedom from danger or hazard.” Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1949). “Safety” could, therefore, cover health issues.4 But, as we shall see below, four justices from this Court read the same lay dictionary definition (from an earlier edition) as excluding health considerations. Chicago & N W R Co v Pub Utilities Comm, 233 Mich 676, 696; 208 NW 62 (1926) (opinion by SHARPE, J.). Moreover, we are looking for the meaning of “public safety.” None of the everyday dictionaries defines that term. Nor do the legal dictionaries from the period. See, e.g., Black’s Law Dictionary (4th ed). The statutory context makes clear that the EPGA uses “public safety” as a term of art with a narrower meaning than the one the Governor posits. Recall that MCL 10.32 gives the Governor “sufficiently broad power of action in the exercise of the police power of the state . . . .” (Emphasis added.) As we have explained, “It has been long recognized that the state, pursuant to its inherent police power, may enact regulations to promote the public health, safety, and welfare.” Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mich v Milliken, 422 Mich 1, 73; 367 NW2d 1 (1985); see also Osborn v Charlevoix Circuit Judge, 114 Mich 655, 664; 72 NW 982 (1897) (same). In other words, “public safety” was one of the objectives for which the police power could be exercised; so was “public health.” See Legarre, The Historical Background of the Police Power, 9 U Pa J Const L 745, 791 (2007) (noting caselaw standing for the proposition “that the state’s police power existed only for certain limited objectives, namely, the promotion of public health, safety, and morals”). 4 The last entry in Webster’s definition for “safety” characterized it as “[a] keeping of oneself or others safe, esp. from danger of accident or disease.” Id. 7 Thus, when terms from the police-power context like “public safety” crop up in statutes, as they frequently do, courts treat them as terms of art. Cf. Lincoln Ctr v Farmway Co-Op, Inc, 298 Kan 540, 552; 316 P3d 707 (2013) (noting that the meaning of the terms “public health” and “public safety” is “widely understood in legal circles”); CLEAN v Washington, 130 Wash 2d 782, 804; 928 P2d 1054 (1996) (en banc) (noting that the “terms ‘public peace, health or safety’ ” are “synonymous with an exercise of the State’s ‘police power’ ”). In light of the lengthy history and pervasive use of the terms “police power” and “public safety,” the Legislature’s intent in employing them in the EPGA is unmistakable. By invoking “public safety” and placing it alongside “police power,” the Legislature incorporated the specialized legal meanings of these terms. Another contextual clue supports this conclusion. If the term “public safety” is given the ordinary meaning offered by the Governor and embraced by the majority, it would render as surplusage the phrase “when public safety is imperiled.” Courts, however, strive to avoid interpretations that read statutes as containing terms that are surplusage or nugatory. People v Pinkney, 501 Mich 259, 282; 912 NW2d 535 (2018). As noted, the full phrase—“when public safety is imperiled”—modifies the entire preceding list of triggering events (i.e., “times of great public crisis, disaster, rioting, catastrophe, or similar public emergency within the state”). The term “public” already precedes and modifies this list, so interpreting it under its ordinary meaning in the phrase “public safety” inevitably leads to surplusage. And by defining “safety” broadly as “ ‘the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss,’ ” the majority also fails to give it any real meaning. It is hard to imagine a “great . . . crisis, disaster, riot[], catastrophe, or similar public emergency” that does not risk “causing hurt, injury, or loss” to “people in general.” 8 Thus, ignoring context and reading “public safety” as a term of ordinary meaning renders it nugatory by giving it no meaning at all. So our task is to decide whether “public safety,” as a term of art related to the “police power,” includes public-health issues like epidemics. II. THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN PUBLIC SAFETY AND PUBLIC HEALTH
The distinction between “public safety” and “public health” is borne out in caselaw from this Court and others.5 Most directly, in 1931 this Court defined public safety as it was used in a constitutional provision allowing laws to take immediate effect if necessary “ ‘for the preservation of the public peace, health or safety,’ ” i.e., if they invoked the police power. Naudzius v Lahr, 253 Mich 216, 227; 234 NW 581 (1931) (citation omitted). Our core interpretation suggests that public health is not within the scope of “public safety”: “ ‘Laws in regard to “public safety” are allied in their application and effect to those enacted to promote the public peace, preserve order, and provide that security to the individual which comes from an observance of law.’ ” Id. at 228, quoting Pollock v Becker, 5 The distinction stretches at least as far back as Lord Blackstone, who distinguished offenses against the “public peace” (e.g., murder, public fighting, and destruction of public property) and offenses against “public health,” which involved communicable diseases. 4 Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, pp -149, 161. Blackstone’s contemporary, Jeremy Bentham, similarly carved up the police powers “into eight distinct branches,” including “the prevention of offences,” “the prevention of calamities,” and “the prevention of endemic diseases.” Bentham, A General View of a Complete Code of Laws, in 3 Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham (Bowring ed, 1843), p 169 (emphasis added). 9 289 Mo 660; 233 SW 641, 649 (1921) (en banc). This definition of “public safety” matches others from both that period and now.6 Our adoption of Pollock’s definition is particularly meaningful because Pollock was interpreting a similar constitutional provision and went on to define each of the terms in that provision. “Public peace,” according to Pollock, was “that quiet, order and freedom from disturbance guaranteed by law.” Pollock, 233 SW at 649. “By the ‘public health,’ ” the court explained, “is meant the wholesome sanitary condition of the community at large.” Id. We had also acknowledged the distinctions earlier in Newberry v Starr, 247 Mich 404; 225 NW 885 (1929). Examining the same constitutional provision, we answered whether an act creating school districts could be given immediate effect because it bore “any real or substantial relation to preservation of public health, peace, or safety[.]” Id. at 411. We treated these as three separate categories, noting that “school districts have most important duties relating to preservation of health,” during such epidemics, “and less important duties respecting peace and safety,” including building safety and the safety of students in attendance. Id. We again addressed the distinction in Chicago, 233 Mich at 699 (opinion by SHARPE, J.). There, a state law requiring cab curtains for the health of railroad employees 6 See Graves, American State Government (Boston: DC Heath & Co, 3d ed, 1946), p 784 (stating that public safety included laws on criminal control, protection of life and property, industrial safety, fireworks, firearms, building codes, and motor vehicles); 16A CJS, Constitutional Law (June 2020 update), § 707 (stating that public-safety laws concern “dangerous persons, restraining dangerous practices, and prohibiting dangerous structures”) (citations omitted). 10 was challenged as conflicting with federal railroad legislation that expressly stated its purpose was safety. Justice SHARPE, writing for four justices on a Court of eight, explained: In my opinion, the words “health” and “safety,” as used in these acts, are not synonymous terms. “Health” is defined by Webster as “The state of being hale, sound, or whole, in body, mind, or soul; especially, the state of being free from physical disease or pain,” and “safety” as “freedom from danger or hazard; exemption from hurt, injury, or loss.” While some of the safety provisions of the federal acts may tend to protect the health of the employees, such protection is but incidental to the main purpose, that of safeguarding the lives and limbs of the employees and protecting th[at] which is being transported, be it passengers or freight. [Id. at 696.][7] Thus, four justices rejected the conflation of safety and health, using an earlier version of the same dictionary the Governor cites here. The other four justices did not reject this argument but instead thought the federal legislation “covered ‘the entire locomotive and tender and all their parts’ . . . .” Id. at 689.8 And the distinction has persisted in more recent cases from our sister state courts as well. In Olivette v St Louis Co, 507 SW3d 637, 638, 645-646 (Mo App, 2017), the court 7 That conclusion reflected the majority position of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Chicago & N W R Co v R Comm of Wisconsin, 188 Wis 232; 205 NW 932, 934 (1925) (“[T]he public health and the public safety afford two distinct fields of legislation. It is true that to some extent regulations promoting public safety also promote public health, but that fact alone cannot make a health regulation of a regulation distinctly in the interest of safety.”), rev’d on other grounds by Napier v Atlantic Coast Line R Co, 272 US 605 (1926). 8 That was also the conclusion of the United States Supreme Court when it decided the issue in Napier v Atlantic Coast Line R Co, 272 US 605; 47 S Ct 207; 71 L Ed 432 (1926). Again, the distinction drawn between health and safety was not rejected, however. The Court merely observed that regulations for health or comfort may incidentally promote safety. Id. at 611-612. 11 rejected a county’s effort to ground an ordinance establishing minimum police-force standards on a 1945 statute allowing it to promulgate rules to promote the “ ‘public health’ ” and prevent contagious diseases. Id. at 642 (citation omitted). In doing so, the court declined to adopt a broad definition of “public health,” noting that the legislature had created “different departments to address ‘public safety’ and ‘public health,’ ” indicating that “it considers these two different and distinct areas of government authority.” Id. at 645. In addition, the Legislature had enacted numerous statutes distinguishing the terms, “such as in the phrase ‘public health, safety and welfare[.]’ ” Id.; see also Winterfield v Palm Beach, 455 So 2d 359, 361 (Fla, 1984) (“At the very least, the public safety purpose of the police and fire projects is separate and distinct from the public health purpose of the sewer projects.”).
The statutory structure in place when the Legislature enacted the EPGA also confirms the distinct meanings of “public safety” and “public health” and demonstrates that the Legislature did not mean to conflate the two concepts in the EPGA. As far back as 1873, the Legislature had created the State Board of Health (the Board), which was given “general supervision of the interests of the health and life of the citizens of this State.” 1873 PA 81, § 2.9 The Board was to “make sanitary investigations and inquiries respecting the causes of disease, and especially of epidemics[.]” Id. Around 9 Even further back, our earliest statutes devoted a separate statutory title to “Public Health” (providing for local boards of health and quarantines, among other things), as distinct from the title dealing with the “Internal Police of the State” (providing for the regulation of disorderly persons, taverns, and “the law of the road,” among other things). See 1838 RS, Part 1, Titles VIII and IX. 12 the same time, the Legislature enacted a framework for localities to address contagious diseases, once again under the rubric of “health” rather than “safety.” In 1883, the Legislature authorized municipal health officers to investigate any outbreaks of “communicable disease dangerous to the public health” and order isolation of the sick, require vaccinations, and mandate other sanitary measures to combat the disease. 1883 PA 137, § 1. Violations of the health officer’s orders was a finable offense. 1883 PA 137, § 2. Ten years later, the Legislature granted similar powers to the State Board of Health, allowing it to isolate individuals suspected of having communicable diseases—the Governor’s only role was to draw money from the general fund for the Board’s use. 1893 PA 47. The statutory structure in place in 1945 took shape in the wake of the influenza epidemic of 1918. In the midst of that epidemic, Governor Albert Sleeper banned by order various public meetings. State Closing is “Flu” Order, Lansing State Journal (October 19, 1918), p 1. The order did not cite any authority allowing the Governor to take such action, but the closures lasted only a few weeks. Id. (reprinting order); Governor Lifts “Flu” Ban, The Sebewaing Blade (November 7, 1918), p 1. Perhaps in response, just months after the ban, the Legislature overhauled the statutory framework for addressing statewide epidemics and public health more generally. In an act “to protect the public health,” the Legislature replaced the State Board of Health with a State Health Commissioner, who was given authority over the health laws as well as public meetings. 1919 PA 146, §§ 1, 2, and 9. 13 As things stood in 1945, the Commissioner had “general charge and supervision of the enforcement of the health laws” of the state. 1948 CL 325.2.10 And there was a lot to supervise—the health code stretched over multiple chapters and sections, involving statistics, local health boards, handling of dead bodies, mental diseases, hospitals, and communicable diseases, among others. One of the first provisions in the code came from 1919 PA 146, § 9—the section of the act addressing public meetings: In case of an epidemic of any infectious or dangerous communicable disease within this state or any community thereof, the state health commissioner may, if he deem it necessary to protect the public health, forbid the holding of public meetings of any nature whatsoever except church services which may be restricted as to number in attendance at 1 time, in said community, or may limit the right to hold such meetings in his discretion. Such action shall not be taken, however, without the consent and approval of the advisory council of health. . . . Such order shall be signed by the health commissioner and if applicable to the entire state be countersigned by the governor. [1948 CL 325.9] An entire chapter of the code contained detailed provisions applicable to communicable diseases. Upon finding that, among other things, a “dangerous communicable disease” existed inside or outside the state “whereby the public health is imperiled,” the State Health Commissioner was “authorized to establish a system of quarantine for the state of Michigan and the governor shall have authority to order the state militia to any section of the state on request of the state board of health to enforce such quarantine.” 1948 CL 329.1. The purpose of the quarantine was to prevent travel within the state and detain individuals exposed to the disease. 1948 CL 329.2. Railroad cars and “public or private conveyances” could also be detained under rules produced by the 10 Although the citations are to the 1948 compiled laws, all statutes cited appeared the same in 1945. 14 Commissioner if they contained persons or property carrying the infection, which could then be isolated. 1948 CL 329.3. Violation of the Commissioner’s rules was a misdemeanor. 1948 CL 329.6. Local health boards also played a large role in the response to epidemics. Most directly, local health boards had authority to quarantine those “infected with a dangerous communicable disease.” 1948 CL 327.15; see also 1948 CL 327.27 and 1948 CL 327.28 (allowing townships to set up quarantine grounds and establish joint quarantine areas); 1948 CL 327.29 (permitting the township board of health to quarantine vessels). Localities bordering other states could examine any travelers from “infected places in other states” for “any infection which may be dangerous to the public health” and restrain their entry if necessary. 1948 CL 327.17. Localities could also establish hospitals specifically for dealing with any “disease which may be dangerous to the public health.” 1948 CL 327.35.11 During outbreaks, the township board of health had to “immediately provide such hospital[s]” or places for the infected and had to remove infected individuals to that place. 1948 CL 327.39; 1948 CL 327.40. Boards of health had a general duty to “use all possible care to prevent the spreading of the infection . . . .” 1948 CL 327.41. Many other statutes mentioned both “health” and “safety,” indicating that these terms had different meanings—if they meant the same thing, the Legislature would not likely have used each term. See, e.g., 1948 CL 42.17 (providing that charter townships had the same authority 11 See also 1948 CL 327.49 (applying township standards to cities and villages); 1948 CL 331.202 (authorizing certain counties to build and maintain “a hospital for the treatment of persons suffering from contagious and infectious diseases”); 1948 CL 67.52 (authorizing village councils to provide for a hospital for persons with infectious or contagious diseases and authorizing the council to order detention and treatment of those individuals). 15 as cities “to provide for the public peace and health and for the safety of persons and property”). Other provisions, both in the health code and elsewhere, constructed elaborate rules on how epidemics were to be handled, spanning from the appointment of state medical officials to specific instructions for railroads and summer resorts to criminal penalties for spreading communicable diseases.12 An entirely different batch of statutes addressed public safety.13 Just as it had announced when it was legislating for “public health,” the Legislature did so with “public 12 See, e.g., 1948 CL 329.4 and 1948 CL 329.5 (disinfection of persons and property); 1948 CL 329.51 (appointment of a state medical inspector); 1948 CL 325.23 (creating a state bacteriology position tasked with examining and analyzing materials “in localities where there is an outbreak of any contagious disease or epidemic” if the examination or analysis was “necessary to the public health and welfare”); 1948 CL 327.43 (providing duties with regard to any “disease dangerous to the public health” in boarding houses and hotels); 1948 CL 327.44 (obligating physicians to report any cases of diseases “dangerous to the public health”); 1948 CL 125.485 (allowing an officer of the health department to order that a dwelling be vacated if it was “infected with contagious disease”); 1948 CL 462.5(a) (prohibiting railroads from offering free transportation except in limited circumstances, including offering free passage “with the object of providing relief in cases of general epidemic, pestilence or otherwise calamitous visitation”); 1948 CL 455.212 (allowing the board of summer resorts to enact bylaws “to protect all occupants from contagious diseases and to remove from said lands any and all persons afflicted with contagious diseases”); 1948 CL 750.473 (“No person sick with . . . any other communicable disease, dangerous to the public health, and no article which has been infected or is liable to propagate or convey any such disease, shall come or be brought into any township, city or village in Michigan . . . .”); 1948 CL 125.757d (requiring owners of trailer-coach parks to report to a board of health any person suspected of having a “communicable disease”). 13 It is true that a few health statutes mentioned “safety” or “public safety.” For example, the statute allowing local boards of health to quarantine individuals with diseases gave the boards the power to “make effectual provision in the manner in which it shall judge best for the safety of the inhabitants and it may remove such sick or infected person to a separate house or hospital . . . .” 1948 CL 327.15. But it seems likely that the Legislature invoked safety because these statutes involved removing individuals. That would explain why the 16 safety.” The title to the 1935 legislation creating the state police began, “An Act to provide for the public safety[.]” 1935 PA 59, title. In creating the state police, the Legislature transferred to it the “department of public safety” and made the state police commissioner the state’s deputy oil inspector and fire marshal. 1948 CL 28.5; 1948 CL 28.13 (“Whenever reference is made in any law to the ‘commissioner of public safety’ or to the ‘department of public safety’ such reference shall be construed to mean, respectively, the commissioner of the Michigan state police and department of Michigan state police . . . .”). In other words, the state had a separate department assigned to “public safety,” and it fell within the state police force’s purview. None of the relevant statutes regarding that department or the police force referred to epidemics or communicable diseases.14 Rather, the police were assigned to enforce the criminal laws. 1948 CL 28.6. Other matters also fell within the concept of public safety, such as highway traffic regulation. In 1941, the Legislature Legislature provided for justices of the peace to make out warrants directing law enforcement to conduct the removals. 1948 CL 327.18. Other courts have made this connection. See Haverty v Bass, 66 Me 71, 73 (1874) (“[The statute] enables [officials charged with enforcing the statute] to command the services of others. It might be difficult to obtain the necessary assistance, in an undertaking so hazardous to health. But, by means of a warrant, they can compel executive officers to act. They can remove a sick person without the aid of a warrant, or they can use that instrumentality to enforce obedience to their commands, if a resort to such means of assistance becomes necessary.”). For this reason, the cases cited by the majority that addressed statutes referring to both health and safety—Jacobson v Massachusetts, 197 US 11, 37; 25 S Ct 358; 49 L Ed 643 (1905); People ex rel Hill v Lansing Bd of Ed, 224 Mich 388, 391; 195 NW 95 (1923)—are distinguishable. 14 Some statutes regulating the police mentioned “public health.” The title to one such act for inspection of kerosene and petroleum products referred to “the protection of public health and safety[.]” 1939 PA 114, title. Of course, an explosive substance poses a safety risk unlike an epidemic, and thus it makes sense that it would fall under the purview of the police. 17 created the “Michigan state safety commission” for the express purpose of “promot[ing] . . . greater safety on the public highways and other places within the state . . . .” 1941 PA 188, title. This was the state of the law in 1945 when the Legislature passed the EPGA. These statutes, like the caselaw, support the conclusion that “public health” and “public safety” represented distinct legal concepts. The statutory context does more than that, however. Reading the EPGA in light of this context also demonstrates how improbable it is that the Legislature meant to depart from the historical understanding of “public safety” by expanding the concept to include “public health” emergencies. In general, we interpret statutes in the manner “most compatible with the surrounding body of law into which the provision must be integrated[.]” Green v Bock Laundry Machine Co, 490 US 504, 528; 109 S Ct 1981; 104 L Ed 2d 557 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring). The statutory terms and phrases a court interprets are not only part of a whole statute but more broadly are “part of an entire corpus juris. So, if possible, it should no more be interpreted to clash with the rest of that corpus than it should be interpreted to clash with other provisions of the same law.” Reading Law, p 252. One way we do so is by adhering to the “cardinal rule of statutory interpretation that no provision should be construed to be entirely redundant.” Kungys v United States, 485 US 759, 778; 108 S Ct 1537; 99 L Ed 2d 839 (1988) (plurality opinion by Scalia, J.); see also Grimes v Dep’t of Transp, 475 Mich 72, 89-90; 715 NW2d 275 (2006) (courts avoid interpretations that render text surplusage). “If possible, every word and every provision is to be given effect . . . . None should needlessly be given an interpretation that causes it to duplicate another provision . . . .” Reading Law, p 174. In a like manner, when a statute specifically 18 addresses a topic, that statute will control over a more general statute that might otherwise apply. See TOMRA of North America, Inc v Dep’t of Treasury, ___ Mich ___, ___; ___ NW2d ___ (2020) (Docket Nos. 158333 and 158335); slip op at 13-14. The Governor’s broad reading of the EPGA does not comport with these longstanding interpretive principles. For her to be correct, we would have to assume that the Legislature in 1945 meant to lay waste to the extensive statutory provisions specifically addressing epidemics and communicable diseases. Under her reading, this body of statutory law would have been mere surplusage. An epidemic would constitute a “public safety” event justifying a state of emergency. At that point, the actual “public health” statutes would have been totally eclipsed by a statute that, on its face, does not even refer to public health or epidemics. The powerful but limited tools given to the Governor and the State Health Commissioner under the health code would have been superfluous—the Governor, applying the EPGA, could have fashioned any tools she thought fit and transgressed any limitations prescribed by the health code. The same problem arises in the statutory context today. When the meaning of a term is questionable, as “public safety” might be thought of here, courts should “construe it to contain that permissible meaning which fits most logically and comfortably into the body of both previously and subsequently enacted law.” West Virginia Univ Hosps, Inc v Casey, 499 US 83, 100; 111 S Ct 1138; 113 L Ed 2d 68 (1991). This is “because it is our role to make sense rather than nonsense out of the corpus juris.” Id. at 101. 19 The Governor’s interpretation makes nonsense out of the current body of statutes. Many laws similar to those above remain on the books.15 Most notably, the 1919 law passed in the wake of the influenza epidemic and Governor Sleeper’s actions is still the law, albeit in slightly modified form. See MCL 333.2253 (allowing the director of the health department to “prohibit the gathering of people for any purpose and [to] establish procedures to be followed during the epidemic to insure continuation of essential public health services and enforcement of health laws”). But this law is redundant alongside the EPGA. As if to prove this, the Director of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has issued a series of orders under MCL 333.2253 simply “reinforcing” key executive orders on COVID-19, such as those mandating masks and instituting the Safe Start Program, which itself contains the Governor’s overarching regulatory response to COVID-19 (e.g., remote-work requirements, public-accommodation restrictions, and prohibitions on large gatherings). Emergency Order Under MCL 333.2253 – Regarding Executive Orders 2020-153, 2020-160, and 2020-161, order of the Director of the DHHS, 15 See, e.g., MCL 333.2221(1) (charging the Department of Public Health with the responsibility to “continually and diligently endeavor to prevent disease”); see also MCL 333.2221(2)(a) and (d) (giving the department “general supervision of the interests of the health and life of the people of this state” and making it responsible for investigating “[t]he causes of disease and especially of epidemics”); MCL 333.5115 (the department must establish standards for “the discovery and care of an individual having or suspected of having a communicable disease or a serious communicable disease or infection”); MCL 333.5203(1) (the department must issue warnings to individuals with communicable diseases deemed to be “health threat[s] to others”); MCL 333.5205 (those warnings can be enforced in court); MCL 333.5207 (the individuals can be temporarily detained, tested, and treated); MCL 333.9621 (allowing local health departments, state institutions, and physicians to require microbiological examinations in locations “where there is an outbreak of a communicable disease or epidemic requiring the examination or analysis to protect the public health”); MCL 331.202 (allowing counties with a certain population to construct and maintain hospitals for individuals with “contagious and infectious diseases”). 20 entered July 29, 2020 (“reinforcing” EOs 2020-153, 2020-160, and 2020-161). In other words, nearly everything the Governor has done under the EPGA, she has also purported to do, via the DHHS Director, under MCL 333.2253. The contextual clues within the EPGA all lead to the same conclusion. To begin with, nowhere does the EPGA refer to terms or tools traditionally associated with publichealth emergencies. This stands in stark contrast to the provisions from the 1945 health code discussed above. Those statutes referred to quarantines, removal of the sick, and medical treatment—the common responses to epidemics for centuries. See Zuckerman, Plague and Contagionism in Eighteenth-Century England: The Role of Richard Mead, 78 Bull Hist Med 273, 287-289 (2004); Link, Public Health History: Toward a New Synthesis, 19 Reviews Am Hist 528, 529 (1991) (book review). Instead, what we find in the EPGA are terms suggesting safety concerns of the sort law-enforcement agencies have a duty to confront. Consider the nonexhaustive list of example orders the Governor can issue controlling matters such as traffic, places of amusement, alcoholic beverages, and explosives. These all appear to anticipate events like riots, in which the behavior of the public is what poses the safety risk. None of the examples relates to contagious diseases or epidemics. The references to designated “area[s]” and “specific zones” also suggest a focus on safety issues like civil disturbances. Although the statute does not expressly or impliedly limit the geographic scope of the emergency, it was evidently crafted with local emergencies in mind. That focus is also evident in the provision allowing city mayors and county sheriffs to seek emergency declarations. The accommodation for localities seems designed for civil disturbances and the like, not epidemics that could easily spread from place to place across the state. Read 21 as part of the larger statutory context, then, the EPGA suggests a focus on public safety rather than public health.
Another relevant interpretive consideration is how governors have used and construed the EPGA in the past. See Westbrook v Miller, 56 Mich 148, 151-152; 22 NW 256 (1885) (noting that “great deference is always” owed to an executive’s practical construction of a statute it enforces); 2B Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction (7th ed, October 2019 update), § 49:3 (noting that “long-continued contemporaneous and practical interpretation of a statute by executive officers . . . is an invaluable aid to construction” and “is closely related to the doctrine that statutes are given their common and ordinary meaning”). In this regard, although “public health” was mentioned in past emergency declarations and orders under the EPGA, none ever involved public-health emergencies.16 Rather, prior to the adoption of the EMA in 1976, in the handful of times it was invoked, governors had employed the EPGA for events like riots, energy shortages, and violent strikes or protests. See, e.g., Executive Order No. 1967-3 (riots). Since the passage of the EMA in 1976, the EPGA has been mostly dormant. The only executive order expressly 16 It has been observed that Governor William Milliken ostensibly used the EPGA in 1970 to ban fishing in Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River due to pollution concerns; two weeks after issuing that order, he issued a similar order banning commercial walleye fishing on Lake Erie. See Van Beek, A History of Michigan’s Controversial 1945 Emergency Powers Law (August 31, 2020), p 3. But even assuming that this falls within the realm of “public health,” Governor Milliken’s orders did not cite the EPGA or declare an emergency. Executive Order No. 1970-6; Executive Order No. 1970-7. 22 citing the EPGA in the past 50 years was in response to an oil spill—but the EMA was also invoked. Executive Order No. 2010-7. That is it. This limited, practical use of the EPGA was perhaps a result of Governor Milliken’s belief, expressed in his “Special Message to the Legislature on Natural Disasters,” that the statute was “pertinent to civil disturbances . . . .” 1973 House Journal 861 (No. 41, April 11, 1973). Whatever the reason for its limited use, the Governor’s current application of the statute to cover public-health emergencies is unprecedented.17 Thus, an examination of the statute’s prior uses also supports the narrower interpretation given above. 17 Not only is the Governor’s use of the statute unprecedented in Michigan, it is unique across the entire country. The statutory authority invoked in the COVID-19 emergency declarations by nearly every other state governor explicitly contemplates public-health emergencies. See Ala Code 31-9-1 and Ala Code 31-9-3(4); Alas Stat 26.23.020(i); Ariz Rev Stat Ann 26-301(15), Ariz Rev State Ann 26-303(D) and Ariz Rev Stat Ann 36-787; Ark Code Ann 12-75-102 and Ark Code Ann 20-7-110; Cal Gov Code 8558; Colo Rev Stat 24-33.5-704.5; Conn Gen Stat 19a-131a; Del Code Ann, tit 20, §§ 3102(2) and 3132(11); Fla Stat 381.00315; Ga Code Ann 38-3-51(a); Hawaii Rev Stat 127A-2; Idaho Code 46-1002 and Idaho Code 46-1007; Ill Comp Stat, ch 20, 3305/4; Ind Code 10-14-3- 12 and Ind Code 10-14-3-1; Iowa Code 29C.6(1); Kan Stat Ann 48-904; Ky Rev Stat Ann 39A.020(12); La Stat Ann 29:762; Me Stat, tit 37-B, § 703 and Me Stat, tit 22, § 801(4-A); Md Code Ann, Pub Safety, 14-101(c); Mass Gen Laws, ch 17, § 2A; Minn Stat 4.035(2); Miss Code Ann 33-15-5(g); Mont Code Ann 10-3-103(4); NJ Stat Ann 26:13-2; NM Stat Ann 12-10A-3 and NM Stat Ann 12-10-4(B); NY Exec Law 20 (McKinney); NC Gen Stat 166A-19.3(6); ND Cent Code 37-17.1-04; Ohio Rev Code Ann 5502.21; Okla Stat, tit 63, §§ 683.2(A) and 683.3; Or Rev Stat 401.025; Pa Cons Stat, tit 35, § 7102; RI Gen Laws, tit 30, § 30-15-3; SC Code Ann 25-1-440 and SC Code Ann 44-4-130; SD Codified Laws 34-48A-1; Tenn Code Ann 58-2-102; Tex Gov’t Code Ann 418.014; Utah Code Ann 532a-202(1); Vt Stat Ann, tit 20, § 1(a); Va Code Ann 44-146.14(a) and Va Code Ann 44146.16; Wash Rev Code 38.52.010 and Wash Rev Code 38.52.020(1); W Va Code 15-5- 1; Wis Stat 323.10; Wy Stat Ann 19-13-103(a) and Wy Stat Ann 35-4-115(a)(i); see also Nev Rev Stat 414.0335 and Nev Rev Stat 414.0345 (the governor did not cite specific statutes in the COVID-19 declaration of emergency but instead broadly invoked the “laws” of the state—these statutes allow emergency declarations for public-health events). 23