Opinion ID: 1842234
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: mcla 600.309.

Text: Sec. 309. All appeals to the court of appeals from final judgments or decisions permitted by this act shall be a matter of right. All other appeals from other judgments or orders to the court of appeals permitted by statute or supreme court rule shall be by right or by leave as provided by the statute or the rules promulgated by the supreme court. LEVIN, J. (separate opinion). The Court, unwisely in my opinion, asserts the power to eliminate by court rule appeal as a matter of right to the Court of Appeals in Michigan Employment Security Commission cases, granted by act of the Legislature. Since the Constitution secures an appeal as a matter of right only in a criminal prosecution, [1] the Court asserts nothing less than the power to control, without regard to the will of the Legislature, whether there shall be an appeal as of right to the Court of Appeals (or, as the case may be, the circuit court) in civil cases. [2] I The Employment Security Act provides that decisions of the Employment Security Appeal Board are subject to review by the circuit court. The Act further provides: An appeal may be had from the decisions of said circuit court in the same manner as provided by the laws of this state in respect to appeals from circuit courts. (Emphasis supplied.) MCLA 421.38; MSA 17.540. Decisions of the circuit court are appealable as a matter of right to the Court of Appeals under RJA §§ 308, 309. [3] RJA § 308 provides that the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction on appeals from    [a]ll final judgments from    the circuit courts   . The first sentence of RJA § 309 provides that appeals to the Court of Appeals from final judgments or decisions permitted by this act, e.g., RJA § 308, shall be a matter of right. The second sentence of RJA § 309 states that as to [a]ll other appeals to the Court of Appeals, the question of whether the appeal shall be as of right or by leave will depend on the statute or court rule permitting the appeal. Since MESC appeals are appeals from the circuit court, appeals permitted by this act, it is arguable that such appeals are not an other appeal. However, if the specific is thought to govern the general and, therefore, the Employment Security Act governs, the result is the same because that act provides that [a]n appeal may be had from the decisions of said circuit court in the same manner as provided by the laws of this state in respect to appeals from circuit courts, i.e., under RJA § 308 and the first sentence of RJA § 309, as of right. The Court, nevertheless, today holds that a court rule, Rule 806.2(4), has eliminated the appeal as of right to the Court of Appeals granted by the Employment Security Act and RJA §§ 308, 309: Rule 806 Appeals by Right and by Leave    .2 Appeal by leave. The Court of Appeals may grant leave to appeal from:    (4) Appeals from final judgments entered by the Circuit Court on appeals from any other courts or tribunals. (Emphasis supplied.) Subdivision (4) of Rule 806.2, any other courts or tribunals, was added in February, 1969, [4] following a 1968 amendment [5] of RJA § 308 [6] eliminating direct appeal to the Court of Appeals from courts other than the circuit court, recorder's court and court of claims and providing that appeals from all other courts and the traffic and ordinance division of recorder's court shall be taken to the circuit court upon which further review may be had only upon application for leave to appeal granted by the court of appeals. Although the 1968 amendment of RJA § 308 speaks only of appeals from final judgments from all other courts, when GCR 1963, 806 was amended in February, 1969, to conform to the statutory changes, the words or tribunals were added by mistake. [7] There is less reason to surround a court rule with an aura of infallibility than a judicial decision. Judicial decisions are rendered in the crucible of adversary presentation following pleadings which frame issues, trials directed to the issues, frequently opinions of lower courts, briefing in those courts and in this court, oral argument and conference discussion following the circulation of draft opinion(s). Court rules, in contrast, are developed in a nonadversary context. They frequently concern abstractions about which the Court is inadequately informed. The generalizations embodied in a rule often have a reach beyond its immediate purpose and what is in the minds of the Justices who read and discuss the rules preceding their adoption. By its very nature, a court rule is all obiter dictum. There is no hard, concrete, narrow case to confine the general to the specific. The United States Supreme Court has said, The fact that this Court promulgated the [bankruptcy] rules as formulated and recommended by the Advisory Committee does not foreclose consideration of their validity, meaning or consistency. Mississippi Publishing Corp v Murphree, 326 US 438, 444; 66 S Ct 242, 246; 90 L Ed 185, 191 (1946). In Meek v Centre County Banking Co, 268 US 426; 45 S Ct 560; 69 L Ed 1028 (1925), the Court struck down one of the general orders in bankruptcy it had promulgated under rule-making power conferred by Congress. This Court has on more than one occasion overruled a prior judicial decision which on mature reflection appeared to have been a mistake or no longer justified. It should not hesitate to rewrite a mistake in a court rule. II The Court says that subdivision 1 of Rule 806 must be read in conjunction with subsection 2 which provides for leave only, in certain specific situations. (Emphasis in original.) The qualifying word only does not appear in subdivision 2. There is no need to read subdivisions 1 and 2 as mutually exclusive, to read subdivision 2 as eliminating a right of appeal provided in subdivision 1. Subdivision 2 begins, The Court of Appeals may grant leave to appeal from   . (Emphasis supplied.) Examination of clauses (1)-(5) of subdivision 2 demonstrates that the mutually exclusive construction placed by the Court on subdivisions 1 and 2 has no meaning except as to the or tribunals mistake. [8] Since the only inconsistency between subdivisions 2 and 1 is the or tribunals clause, and this is also inconsistent with the statutory framework, subdivision 2 can properly be seen as complementing and supplementing, not as qualifying, subdivision 1. There is no need to read into subdivision 2 the word only. Rule 806 can be read as providing, in subdivision 1, a right of appeal, and as separately providing, in subdivision 2, that in appropriate circumstances the Court of Appeals may, without denigration of any right of appeal conferred in subdivision 1, grant leave to appeal from a final judgment entered by the circuit court on appeals from other tribunals as well as from other courts. III The Constitution provides: The jurisdiction of the court of appeals shall be provided by law and the practice and procedure therein shall be prescribed by rules of the supreme court. Const 1963, art 6, § 10. [9] There is recent dictum of this Court that is at least some authority that the Legislature has the power to provide by law for a right of appeal. [10] Decision in this case should not, however, in my opinion, turn on an exegesis of whether appeal as of right or on leave is a matter of jurisdiction or of practice or procedure. Respectable arguments can be made on both sides of that question. Be that as it may, for me it is enough that the Legislature has provided a right of appeal. I can think of no good reason why the Court should want to take it away; the Court recognizes that an appeal as of right from the circuit court has been allowed in MESC cases for over 30 years, originally to this Court, then, after its establishment, to the Court of Appeals. The or tribunals language was a mistake. I would confess error, amend the court rule and remand this case to the Court of Appeals for filing of plaintiff's claim of appeal as of right.