Opinion ID: 845744
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the absurd results exception to the plain language doctrine in michigan

Text: The absurd results exception to the plain language doctrine has a long history in Michigan jurisprudence. From 1844 until 1999, this state relied on and regularly used the rule to interpret statutory language that led to absurd results. In Alvord v. Lent, [5] Justices Graves, Campbell, and Cooley held that [i]f [statutory] construction would produce great inconvenience, if it would lead to absurd or mischievous results, if it would tend to embarrass the course of justice and serve to defeat necessary legal remedies, it ought not to be adopted unless required by some positive rule of law, and we are not aware of any such rule. Id. at 372. This holding by some of the most highly regarded justices of this Court continued the application of the absurd results rule that became part of Michigan law as early as 1844. See Green v. Graves, 1 Doug 351, 354 (Mich., 1844). The holding in Alvord continued a trend that lasted until 1999. Fourteen years after its decision in Alvord, this Court again heard a case raising an absurd results issue. In Cummings v. Corey, [6] the Court followed the holding in Alvord, thus cementing the use of the rule in Michigan. Again, in 1904, the Court cited and followed Alvord. See In re Lambrecht, 137 Mich. 450, 100 N.W. 606 (1904). The trend did not end there, and, in fact, the Court has affirmed the application of the absurd results exception repeatedly during the last century. Cases in the 1910s, [7] 1920s, [8] 1930s, [9] 1940s, [10] 1950s, [11] 1960s, [12] 1970s, [13] 1980s, [14] and 1990s [15] show its continual use. It was only in 1999 that this Court, in People v. McIntire, overruled this longstanding part of Michigan law. In McIntire, the Court gave no legal justification for not following Michigan precedent. Instead, it quoted Justice Antonin Scalia stating, [We] agree with Justice Scalia's description of such attempts to divine unexpressed and nontextual legislative intent as `nothing but an invitation to judicial lawmaking.' McIntire, supra at 156 n. 2, 599 N.W.2d 102, quoting 232 Mich.App. 71, 122 n. 2, 591 N.W.2d 231 (1998) (Young, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), quoting Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 21. Justice Scalia's opinion on the absurd results rule, while perhaps interesting, is not and was not binding on Michigan. Nonetheless, the Court adopted it, and McIntire caused a ripple in Michigan law that was not clearly apparent at the time it was decided. However, McIntire's effect is now very clear. The damage that it has done and continues to do should be stemmed, and Michigan jurisprudence should be put back on the correct track. [16]