Opinion ID: 1880627
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Title-Object Clause

Text: I do not agree that the constitutional principles embodied in the Title-Object Clause prohibit the seat belt statute from applying in products liability cases. Justice Weaver's opinion would hold [a]s a matter of statutory interpretation, we must not, and under constitutional principles we cannot, apply statutes in the motor vehicle code to cases involving the civil liability of manufacturers. Op. at 275. The opinion reaches this conclusion because the title of the act includes liability of owners and operators, but does not explicitly mention the liability of manufacturers. I find this reasoning to be flawed. The Title-Object Clause provides: No law shall embrace more than one object, which shall be expressed in its title. No bill shall be altered or amended on its passage through either house so as to change its original purpose as determined by its total content and not alone by its title. [Const. 1963, art. 4, § 24.] The purpose of the Title-Object Clause has been `many times discussed and passed on by this [C]ourt.' [1] The clause insures that adequate notice will be given of the possible effects of a law enacted by the Legislature. It may be said at the outset that the provision is designed to serve two purposes. First, to prevent action by the legislature without receiving the concurrence therein of the requisite number of members by-bringing together into one bill subjects diverse in their nature, and having no necessary connection, with a view to combine in their favor the advocates of all.[W]hat is commonly spoken of as log-rolling in legislationand also to prevent clauses beinginserted in bills of which the titles gave no intimation, and their passage secured through legislative bodies whose members were not generally aware of their intention and effect. People [ex rel. Drake] v. Mahaney, 13 Mich. 481, 494 [1865]. [A]nd, second, to challenge the attention of those affected by the act to its provisions. People v. Wohlford, 226 Mich. 166, 168 [197 N.W. 558 (1924)].[ [2] ] Justice Weaver's opinion holds that the seat belt statute is incongruous in a products liability action. Applying the act in such an action would result in the act exceeding the scope of its title in violation of the Title-Object Clause. The opinion relies on Maki v. East Tawas, [3] to find the application of the seat belt statute in products liability actions to be unconstitutional. Maki stands for the rule that the Legislature may limit the permissible scope of an act by limiting its title. At issue in Maki was a statute that abolished governmental liability for torts, but whose title included the object of abolishing governmental liability only for negligence. Liability for torts is much broader than liability for negligence. We held in Maki that the specific mention of negligence in an act's title limits the constitutional scope of the act. The Legislature has the right to limit an act in its title or, conversely, to provide for broader application. 385 Mich. at 157, 188 N.W.2d 593. It limited the scope of the act reviewed in Maki by specifying in the title that it would apply to immunity for negligence. Justice Weaver has concluded that the Legislature limited the parties whose liability could be affected by the act. She has applied the rule of statutory construction that provides that mention of one thing, but not another, implies exclusion of the other. She maintains that the Legislature limited the parties affected by mentioning the liability of owners and drivers, but not of manufacturers. I find the conclusion unwarranted. The mere fact that the statute mentions the liability of owners and drivers but does not mention manufacturers is inconclusive. It does not evidence a legislative intent to limit the act to owners and drivers in the way the governmental immunity statute's title provision limited that act's scope in Maki. The reason that the title of the statute mentions owners and drivers is that its purpose is to create liability for owners and drivers. [4] The seat belt statute does not create liability for manufacturers. There is a vast difference between creating liability and affecting liability, which is what the seat belt statute does. The seat belt statute affects the liability of manufacturers, but does not mention manufacturers in its title. It does not follow that its application to the civil liability of manufacturers is unconstitutional. If that were the case, would it not be unconstitutional to apply the motor vehicle code to the civil liability of pedestrians, [5] bicyclists, [6] passengers, [7] and the state? [8] The title of the motor vehicle code does not mention them any more than it mentions manufacturers. [9] Although the Legislature did not name manufacturers in the title to the motor vehicle code, the code has been applied directly to manufacturers for many years. See, for example, 1915 PA 302(16). Several of the code's provisions create minimum standards for automobile equipment. [10] Was not the Legislature attempting to make the manufacturers of that equipment responsible for compliance? Would a manufacturer building a vehicle not meeting those standards be able to sell it, despite the resulting violations, because the motor vehicle code does not apply to it? I believe that it is incorrect to conclude on a broad basis that the motor vehicle code may not constitutionally apply to manufacturers. [11] The title of the motor vehicle code is not as restrictive as the title of the statute found unconstitutional in Maki. There, the Legislature specifically limited the scope of the act to the immunity of the government from negligence liability. Here, the Legislature has not restricted the title to apply only to the safety equipment manufacturers are required to include in vehicles they build. The basis of the decision in Maki was that the Legislature had limited the scope of the act. By contrast, the Legislature has not limited the application of the motor vehicle code as it applies to manufacturers. Therefore, I conclude that the title does not exclude application to manufacturers. The fundamental disagreement I have with Justice Weaver's opinion is that it reflects a belief that the seat belt statute, if applied to manufacturers, created liability for them at the time it was enacted. This is incorrect. While the seat belt statute might increase the liability of a manufacturer today, at the time it became law, the statute lessened the liability of manufacturers. As a result of this misapprehension, Justice Weaver's concurring opinion takes a narrow view of the code's title provisions by concentrating on the civil liability provision. It ignores other portions of the title that easily justify the application of the seat belt statute in the products liability context. [12] One purpose of the Title-Object Clause is to provide notice of a law's scope to those enacting it. Hence, our attention should go to what the Legislature knew at the-time it considered enacting a law, and what the law was intended to accomplish when enacted. Not relevant is the state of the law when judicially reviewed. Therefore, to determine properly whether a title-object violation has occurred, we examine the state of the law at the time an act was adopted. [13] On the date that the seat belt statute became law, it did not create liability for manufacturers. Instead, it limited the recovery of plaintiffs who failed to comply with its provisions. The Legislature enacted the seat belt statute in 1985, creating a standard of care for drivers and front seat passengers by requiring them to buckle their seat belts. It provided a penalty for violation of the standard in the form of a civil infraction. To further encourage seat belt usage, the act provided the added penalty of allowing the admission at trial of evidence of a plaintiff's failure to properly use a seat belt. The Legislature limited the penalty to a reduction in damages of five percent. As Justice Weaver points out, evidence of seat belt nonuse was not admissible in any action, whether it was for products liability or for negligence, until the seat belt act became law. The reason is that contributory negligence was the law until this Court's decision in Placek v. Sterling Heights. [14] When we adopted comparative negligence, contributory negligence was seen as harsh and unjust because it had acted as an absolute bar to plaintiffs who were only slightly at fault. Evidence of seat belt nonuse had not been admissible to defeat contributory negligence. Romankewiz v. Black, 16 Mich.App. 119, 167 N.W.2d 606 (1969). In a negligence action, seat belt nonuse was not admissible under comparative negligence, either, before the seat belt statute was enacted, even though it was no longer a complete bar to recovery. Likewise, seat belt nonuse was inadmissible in products liability actions arising during the years between the enactment of the products liability statute that adopted comparative negligence and the seat belt statute. [15] In effect, when the Legislature enacted the seat belt statute, it replaced a zero-percent reduction under the common law with a five-percent reduction for violation of the statute. The five-percent reduction in damages was a penalty specifically authorized by the code's title. Therefore, when the Legislature enacted the seat belt statute, it was intended as a punishment for drivers and front seat passengers. It was not a windfall for plaintiffs, as the concurring opinions would have us believe. It is exactly the type of provision specifically authorized in the title of the act. [16] I conclude that the Title-Object Clause does not prohibit the direct application of the motor vehicle code in cases involving the liability of a manufacturer. The issue, then, is how broadly the Legislature intended application to be of the punishment contained in the seat belt statute.