Opinion ID: 836195
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the proper method of discerning ambiguity

Text: Having rejected the Lansing Mayor definition of ambiguity, I now iterate the proper method of discerning statutory ambiguity. Before Lansing Mayor was decided, Michigan courts used several analogous variations of statutory interpretation. For example, in In re MCI Telecom Complaint [64] we held that [s]hould a statute be ambiguous on its face ... so that reasonable minds could differ with respect to its meaning, judicial construction is appropriate to determine the meaning. [65] This Court has applied the reasonable minds standard on numerous other occasions. [66] This Court has also employed a doubtful standard in deciding whether ambiguity exists. In Smith v. Grand Rapids City Comm., [67] we held that [w]here... the language of a statute is of doubtful meaning, the court should give it a reasonable construction looking to the purpose to be subserved thereby, and the object sought to be accomplished and its occasion and necessity. [68] Finally, this Court has used a susceptible standard. Applying this method of interpretation, we held that [i]t is only where a statute is unclear and susceptible to more than one interpretation that judicial construction is allowed. [69] These corresponding approaches to evaluating statutes for ambiguity have endured in Michigan caselaw throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. [70] These historical standards for discerning ambiguity are easily reconcilable and analogous. The crux of the reasonable minds standard is that, when two persons reasonably afford different meanings to statutory language, it is ambiguous. As for the doubtful standard, it suggests that a statute is ambiguous when its language is of questionable or unclear meaning. The susceptible standard is self-explanatory in that, if a statute is susceptible to more than one interpretation, it is ambiguous. I adopt a definition of ambiguity that encompasses all three of the aforementioned well-established standards for determining ambiguity. [71] Specifically, I would hold: [W]hen there can be reasonable disagreement over a statute's meaning, or, as others have put it, when a statute is capable of being understood by reasonably well-informed persons in two or more different senses, [a] statute is ambiguous. For example, this Court has concluded that statutes [are] ambiguous when one word in the statute has an unclear meaning, when a statute's interaction with another statute has rendered its meaning unclear, or when application of the statute to facts has rendered the correct application of the statute uncertain. [72] This standard gleans the fundamental principles from the reasonable minds, doubtful, and susceptible tests. It has been applied, in some variation, by every other state in the country, [73] all the federal circuit courts, [74] and by the United States Supreme Court. [75]