Opinion ID: 2086381
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Status of the Interested Department/Employer

Text: Section 2(1) provides in pertinent part that [p]ublic police    departments means any department of a   , county,    having employees engaged as policemen,    or subject to the hazards thereof. Guided by a literal reading of  2(1) alone, the first interpretation concentrates sole attention on the status of the interested department/employer. If the interested department/employer is (i) a department, (ii) of a county, (iii) having somewhere within its ranks, not limited to the particular complaining employee, (iv) more than one employee engaged subject to the hazards of police work, then, pursuant to  3, either the employees or employer may initiate binding arbitration proceedings to resolve a public police    department employee's dispute. By the literal terms of  2(1), fulfillment of the four composite elements is thought sufficient under this first, literal interpretation to activate the Act 312 statutory scheme in favor of all departmental employees' disputes provided more than one county department employee is engaged in a capacity subject to the hazards of police work. This is so regardless of either the interested department's/employer's principal function or charter ÔÇö e.g., city administrative department, county library, township sanitation department ÔÇö or the complaining employee's station ÔÇö e.g., janitor, cook, clerical. Confined by this literal interpretation of  2(1), no reference is made to whether operation of the act in favor of either this interested department/employer or each of its employees would effectuate the act's manifest intent to avert critical-service work stoppage although literally presented with a  2(1) public police    department. Theoretically, therefore, if a county library employed two individuals somewhere within its ranks in a capacity subject to the hazards of police work, and a library receptionist sought Act 312 resolution of an interest dispute with the library employer, the act's alternate, expeditious, effective and binding procedure for the resolution of disputes would become available to the receptionist as a  3 public police    department employee. As stated in  1, permitting that receptionist to initiate Act 312 proceedings would arguably be 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. Although the literal terms of  2(1) would require us to conclude that the theoretical county library is a public police department subject to Act 312 coverage because of its literal status, we are unpersuaded that the Legislature intended such an absurd result. Two panels of our Court of Appeals have rejected similar interpretations in dicta. [8] We are likewise unpersuaded that the Legislature intended these prosecutor's investigators' dispute to be resolved in accordance with the Act 312 mechanism. Literally, although these investigators are subject to the hazards of police work and are engaged in such capacity by a county department, we feel that submission of their dispute to Act 312 arbitration would not effectuate the general legislative intent to avert critical-service work stoppages. Reading the act as a whole and guided by the act's manifest intent, we must conclude that, much like the example of the theoretical county library employing two persons subject to the hazards of police work and the theoretical library receptionist, to permit the investigators' dispute to achieve Act 312 status solely because the Oakland County Prosecutor's Department literally fulfills the four elements of  2(1) would be neither consonant with the legislative intent nor sound reason. Where, as here, `the language of a statute, in its ordinary meaning and grammatical construction, leads to a manifest contradiction of the apparent purpose of the enactment, or to some inconvenience or absurdity, hardship or injustice, presumably not intended, a construction may be put upon it,' so that those unintended ends are avoided. Elba Twp, supra, 394. [A] thing within the letter is not within the statute, unless within the intention. Common Council of Detroit, supra, 542. [D]eparture from the literal construction of a statute is justified when such construction would produce an absurd and unjust result and would be clearly inconsistent with the purposes and policies of the act in question. Salas, supra, 109. We do not perceive that the Legislature intended compulsory interest arbitration in favor of the Oakland County Prosecutor's Department to constitute 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.).