Court Opinion

ID: 9543743
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:48:50.808286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:06.222234
License: Public Domain

Williams and Levin, JJ.
(concurring in part, dissenting in part). We agree with part III of Justice Fitzgerald’s opinion. We would hold, however, that the Legislature, in requiring that the court shall sit at each city within the district having a population of 3,250 or more intended that it shall sit to transact all judicial business, civil and criminal, which, under the statutes, may be brought before it, and that the venue provisions do not impliedly confer on the judges any power to limit the scope of the sitting.
*608I
The majority reasons that to the extent, under the venue statutes, the entire "judicial district is a proper forum for cases arising in that district [emphasis supplied]”, the judges are empowered to direct that all cases be heard in one place in the district.
The venue provisions do not confer judicial power. They concern, rather, a "proper” county or district "in which to commence and try” an action.1 While it would, unless otherwise provided, be proper under the venue provisions to commence and try an action at any of the places the court sits, it does not follow that it is not proper to commence and try a case at another of the places the court sits. Nor is it implied that the judges of the court are thereby empowered to select the place in the district where the case shall be heard and to refuse to hear it at a statutorily-designated place.
The act provides that "[t]he thirty-seventh district consists of the cities of Warren and Center Line, is a district of the third class and has 4 judges”.2 It further provides that:
"In districts of the third class the court shall sit at each city having a population of 3,250 or more and within each township having a population of 12,000 or more and at such other places as the judges of the district determine. However the court shall not be required to sit in any political subdivision if the govern*609ing body of that subdivision by resolution and the court agree that the court shall not sit therein.”3 (Emphasis supplied.)
It is thus clear that while the judges have the power to determine "other places” where the court shall sit and agree to a resolution of a political subdivision "that the court shall not sit therein”, they do not have the power to refuse to sit in a statutorily-designated place of sitting.4
The venue provisions seek to protect a defendant from being required to answer a complaint in an inappropriate county or district. The designation of multiple places of sitting in the district is for the primary convenience of litigants and lawyers at the locales designated and seeks to secure to the people a court at such locales. If the Legislature intended that the judges determine where within the district the court "shall sit” it would not have designated places of sitting statutorily. If the venue provisions were to govern, instead of the elaborate provisions regarding places of sitting all that should have been said was that "the court shall sit at the places within the district the judges shall determine, except as otherwise required by law”. The construction of the majority deprives the words "shall sit” of most of their meaning.
II
The majority avoids resolving where small claims "must” be heard, stating: "The parties agree that by statute the small claims division of the 37th judicial district must sit in Center Line *610'once each 30 days.’ ” (Emphasis supplied.) That disposition makes it unnecessary for the majority to decide whether the small claims venue provisions empower the judges of the 37th district court to require that all small claims arising in the district be heard in Warren.
The act provides, paralleling the venue provisions applicable in civil actions generally (fn 1), that "[i]n districts of the second or third class actions in the small claims division shall be commenced in the district in which the cause of action arose or in the district in which the defendant is established or resides”.5
It would therefore appear, by the process of reasoning applied to civil actions generally (Part I, supra) and state law violations (Part III, infra), that the judges of this district court are empowered to require that all judicial business, including small claims, be conducted in Warren, except violations of City of Center Line Ordinances. If "shall sit” does not take precedence over venue provisions, neither does "shall sit at least once each 30 days”.
Ill
The majority states that because "venue in criminal actions for violations of * * * all city, village, or township ordinances shall be in the political subdivision thereof where the violation took place”,6 charges of ordinance violations must be *611heard in Center Line.
It is stated, however, that charges of state law violations which occurred in Center Line need not be heard in Center Line because no part of Center Line is more than one mile from Warren7 and a 1970 amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that where "an offense is committed on the boundary of’ any political subdivision or "within 1 mile thereof, venue is proper in any” "political subdivision concerned”.8 The amended provision concerns offenses committed so close to the boundary of a political subdivision that it is difficult or impossible to determine the subdivision in which they occurred; it is designed to facilitate the prosecution of offenders who otherwise might claim that the venue is improperly laid.
The majority’s construction means that the Legislature conferred power on judges of a district having the geographic configuration of the 37th district to concentrate all state law violations in one place of sitting, but did not confer such power where a statutorily-designated subdivision is not in its entirety within one mile of its boundary. We *612would not ascribe such an anomalous intent to the Legislature. If it wished to confer such power on these or all district judges, it would have done so in a more congruous manner.
IV
The district court act was enacted pursuant to Const 1963, art 6, § 26, which abolished the offices of circuit court commissioner and justice of the peace not later than five years from the date the Constitution became effective. "Within this five-year period, the legislature shall establish a court or courts of limited jurisdiction with powers and jurisdiction defined by law.” It was contemplated, as appears from the Address to the People, that the Legislature would "re-evaluate the entire system of courts of limited jurisdiction and * * * develop a lower court structure better adapted to the needs of the people and the ends of justice”. 2 Official Record, Constitutional Convention 1961, p 3389. Statutory courts, including municipal courts, were not abolished and these courts continued unchanged "except as provided by law, until they are abolished by law”.9
The district court act bears the hallmarks of legislative compromise. Cities of 3,250 or more, many of which stood to lose, as Center Line did, their municipal courts, were designated as places in which the district court shall sit. In that context it is apparent that the commitment was not that the court would sit in some truncated manner at the pleasure of the judges, but, rather, that it would sit to conduct the usual business of the court. Surely, the Legislature did not intend that *613the facilities of a former municipal court would be maintained to hear only ordinance violations.
It may well be that it would better serve the convenience of some litigants and lawyers, the judges and court personnel, and be more efficient and less expensive to concentrate all the business of this district court in one place. To do so without legislative authorization is, howéver, contrary to the spirit of the act designating Center Line as a place where the court "shall sit”.
We would enter an order declaring that the 37th district shall sit in Center Line to hear all judicial business properly brought there under the jurisdictional and venue provisions of the state, and that the judges of the court are not empowered to limit the judicial business that may be brought in Center Line.
Kavanagh, C.J. concurred with Williams and Levin, JJ.

 MCL 600.8312(5); MSA 27A.8312(5) provides:
"Venue in civil actions shall be governed by the provisions of sections 1601 to 1659 except that for purposes of this subsection all references to 'county’ in sections 1601 to 1659 shall mean 'district’ with respect to districts of the second and third class.”
Sections 1605 et seq. speak of "a proper county in which to commence and try” the actions described in those sections.

 MCL 600.8122(1); MSA 27A.8122(1).

 MCL 600.8251(3); MSA 27A.8251(3).

 It is similarly provided as to districts of the first and second class that the court shall also sit at such other places as the judges of the district shall determine. MCL 600.8251, subds (1) and (2); MSA 27A.8251, subds (1) and (2).

 MCL 600.8415; MSA 27A.8415.

MCL 600.8312; MSA 27A.8312 provides:
“(3) In a district of the third class, venue in criminal actions for violations of state law and all city, village, or township ordinances shall be in the political subdivision thereof where the violation took place, except that when such violation is alleged to have taken place within a political subdivision where the court is not required to sit the action may be tried in any political subdivision within the district where the court is required to sit. *611"(4) With regard to state criminal violations cognizable by the district court, the following special provisions shall apply:
"(a) If an offense is committed on the boundary of 2 or more counties, districts, or political subdivisions or within 1 mile thereof, venue is proper in any of the counties, districts, or political subdivisions concerned.
"(b) If an offense is committed in or upon any railroad train, automobile, aircraft, vessel, or other conveyance in transit, and it cannot readily be determined in which county, district, or political subdivision the offense was committed, venue is proper in any county, district, or political subdivision through or over which the conveyance passed in the course of its journey.”

 The Court of Appeals held that because MCL 600.8312(4); MSA 27A.8312(4), concerning cases where it is difficult or impossible to determine where the offense occurred, concerns only "state criminal violations cognizable by the district court”, arraignments and preliminary examinations for offenses committed in Center Line must be held there.

 1970 PA 213; MCL 762.3; MSA 28.846.

 Const 1963, art 6, § 26.