Court Opinion

ID: 9686842
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:08:57.859648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:22.434782
License: Public Domain

Souris, J.
(concurring in affirmance). While I concur in affirming denial of the writ of man-*302damns to these plaintiffs,’ I cannot agree with Mr. Chief Justice Carr’s opinion that township residents who have instituted incorporation proceedings by petition, as expressly authorized by section 8  of the home-rule cities act (PA 1909, No 279, as amended), can be thwarted in their effort by an adjoining city’s unilateral annexation, under section 9  of the act, of a part of the vacant township land included in the territory sought to be incorporated at the very moment the incorporation petition is pending before the county board of supervisors. While noting my disagreement with the Chief Justice, it is not necessary to decision in this case to resolve that patent ambiguity between sections 8 and 9 which exists when conflicting actions affecting the same territory are sought to be taken under authority of those sections. For present decision we need go no further than to hold that plaintiffs are not entitled to the writ of mandamus for failure to establish their clear legal rig’ht to the favorable action by the board of supervisors to compel which our writ of mandamus is sought.
One of the grounds stated in the supervisors’ resolution declaring that plaintiffs’ petition for incorporation did not conform to the act was that the map required to be attached to the petition by section 6  of the act did not show clearly the territory proposed to be incorporated and that such map in fact tended to mislead the signers of the petition as to the area involved. Defendants’ answers to the plaintiffs’ petition for mandamus in the court below expressly put in issue the misleading nature of the subject map, pleading specifically that the map contained the words “City of Flint” superimposed upon *303that portion of the map which shows not only the township territory sought by the petition to be incorporated, but also territory which was within the existing boundaries of the city of Flint.
Notwithstanding the presence of this factual issue in the case, and notwithstanding plaintiffs’ burden of establishing their clear legal right to the relief sought to be compelled by the court’s writ of mandamus (Livonia Drive-In Theatre Co. v. City of Livonia, 363 Mich 438; Goethal v. Kent County Supervisors, 361 Mich 104; and Janigian v. City of Dearborn, 336 Mich 261, and cases cited therein), there is nothing in the appendix submitted to this Court from which we can say that the map attached to plaintiffs’ petition showed clearly the territory proposed to be incorporated as required by the act.
The burden of proof was upon the plaintiffs to establish compliance with all of the requirements of the act, the benefits of which they seek by issuance of the writ of mandamus. Having failed to carry such burden, they were not entitled to the writ and the trial court’s judgment should, for that reason, be affirmed. No costs, a public question being involved.
Black, Kavanagh, and Smith, JJ., concurred with Souris, J.