Court Opinion

ID: 9723334
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:12:02.321982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:47.139363
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(dissenting). The Court today, in Pittman v City of Taylor, 398 Mich 41; 247 NW2d 512 (1976), abrogates the common-law doctrine of sovereign or governmental immunity.
In this case it holds that the governmental tort liability act1 bars an action against the State Highway Department for negligence in allegedly failing to supervise and inspect the work of a highway construction contractor resulting in the death of plaintiffs’ decedent, an employee of the contractor.
I agree with the Chief Justice and Justice Fitzgerald that the obligation of an owner to supervise and inspect a road under construction is not a governmental function within the meaning of the governmental tort liability act and, accordingly, sign their dissenting opinion.
I do not agree with their statement that the constitutional issues are not ripe for appellate resolution. The Court’s construction of the term *26"governmental function” requires consideration of the constitutional challenge to the validity of the act.
The practical effect of today’s decisions is to retain governmental immunity. The judge-made rule has been abolished but the legislative authority to restore the common-law doctrine has not been scrutinized. Under a different guise, the discredited doctrine of governmental immunity carries on.
I would hold the governmental tort liability act violative of the Equal Protection Clause insofar as it purports to confer immunity on the state and other units of government for tortious acts committed in the performance of functions that have a counterpart in the private sector and for which private persons are subject to liability. Equal Protection is not, however, offended to the extent immunity is conferred for functions which are peculiarly governmental and without counterpart in the private sector.
I
Whatever may be the origin of the doctrine of sovereign or governmental immunity,2 neither the individual states nor the United States possesses the attributes of sovereignty once ascribed to monarchs.3 The basic premise on which the state and *27Federal governments are organized is that all power of government is derived from the people; this concept is expressed in the Michigan Constitution: "All political power is inherent in the people.”4
In ratifying the Constitution of the United States, the states "granted”5 Congress specific powers and conferred on the Federal government only those powers enumerated in the Constitution.6 Similarly, under the Constitution of this state the people, in whom "all political power” inheres, have conferred on the state not all political power, but rather "[t]he powers of government [which] are divided into three branches; legislative, executive and judicial”,7 subject to express and implied limitations. However broad may be the grant of legislative power, the Legislature, in contrast with the English Parliament, is not omnipotent.
"[W]ith the Parliament rests practically the sovereignty of the country, so that it may exercise all the powers of the government if it wills so to do; while on the other hand the legislatures of the American States are not the sovereign authority, and, though vested with the exercise of one branch of the sovereignty, they are nevertheless, in wielding it, hedged in on all sides *28by important limitations, some of which are imposed in express terms, and others by implications which are equally imperative.” 1 Cooley, Treatise on Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), p 173.8
Certain powers and limitations are implied from the language and structure of a written constitution.9 Immunity from tort liability for all governmental activity is not an inherent or implied attribute of governmental power embedded in the Constitution; if it were, the Legislature would not possess the power to waive such constitutionally conferred immunity — all the provisions of the governmental tort liability act would be either redundant or unconstitutional.10
Governmental immunity arises implicitly under the Constitution only to the extent it is necessary *29to the free exercise of the powers of governance. The Governor and the members of the Legislature and of the judiciary may not be called upon in a court of law to answer for the manner in which they exercise the discretionary and decisional governmental powers conferred upon them.
In the exercise of the legislative power, laws may be enacted creating and modifying the tort liability of all persons and entities for particular conduct and functions; functions which are peculiarly governmental and without counterpart in the private sector may be immunized from such liability.
Governmental immunity not being an inherent attribute of governmental power, statutes immunizing from tort liability functions of government are subject to explicit and implicit constitutional limitations and to judicial review when challenged as unconstitutional.
II
In this case, the plaintiff contends that the state, as the owner of a project under construction, is subject to liability for failing to supervise and inspect the work of a contractor.
In Pittman, supra, the plaintiff contends that a school district, as the employer of a school teacher, is subject to liability for physical injury to a student caused by the teacher’s negligence.
In McCann v Michigan, 398 Mich 65; 247 NW2d 521 (1976), it is contended that the state, as the owner of a hospital, is liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior for the acts of supervisory and other employees who intimidated advertisers and others resulting in the demise of a newspaper critical of the hospital management.
*30At common law, liability may be imposed on the owner of a construction project for failing to supervise and inspect the work of a contractor, on the operator of a school for the negligence of a teacher, and on an employer for the intentional torts of an employee committed within the scope of the employment.
The Constitution of this state, paralleling the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that "No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws”.11
Although the bases of tort liability here asserted rest on judge-made rules of law, not statute, the imperative of equal protection of the laws is a limitation on the legislative power to carve out exceptions to both common and statutory law.12
The application in this case of the legislatively conferred immunity means that the family of a construction worker killed by a cave-in may maintain an action against a private owner of property *31for negligence in failing to supervise and inspect, but not if the owner is the state. Recognizing such immunity for school districts would mean that students attending private schools have a cause of action against the school for physical injury caused by the negligence of a teacher, while those attending a public school would not. Depending on how the interrelationship between the legislatively conferred immunity and the doctrine of respondeat superior is ultimately resolved, recognizing this legislatively conferred immunity may mean that a person injured by an intentional tort committed by an employee within the scope of his employment may recover from a private employer, but not if the employer is the state.
Ill
The question here is not whether the Legislature has impermissibly drawn a line where it appears that some line must be drawn but whether there is justification for a classification which carves out of a general rule of law, imposing on employers liability for the tortious acts of their servants, an immunity for a discrete and privileged class of employers.
Whether or not the peculiar advantages possessed by politically powerful units of state and local government in pressing on the Legislature their claims for immunity require "strict scrutiny” of a classification immunizing them from liability for the tortious acts of their employees, such a classification should be carefully examined to determine both whether it is reasonable and whether it bears a reasonable relationship to the objectives of the general rule of liability.
Here the general rule of liability is judge-made and serves to provide a means of redressing civil *32wrongs, compensating victims and deterring intentional tortfeasors. The legislative classification excepting government generally from responsibility for the tortious acts of its employees bears no relationship whatsoever to any of those objectives.
The apparent rationale for governmental immunity is that imposition of liability may inhibit governmental activity and would be costly. Concern that imposition of liability would inhibit the performance of the governmental function is entirely valid where the decisions to be made are peculiarly governmental in nature. For this reason neither the state, the Governor, nor individual members of the Legislature or of the judiciary, can be held accountable in a court of law for the manner in which they exercise their discretionary and decisional powers of governance.
There is nothing about the operation of a state highway department, a public school or a state hospital that differs from their counterparts in the private sector so that imposition of tort liability for those governmental operations would inhibit them in a manner not experienced in the private sector. Imposing on governmental operations the same exposures and restrictions as are experienced without disfunction by private operators has no impact on the governing function.
Whether cost may ever justify governmental immunity need not be decided. It does not justify a classification immunizing government from a general rule of liability where private operators are able to operate and pay the cost and the cost imposed on government for like operations would be comparable.
There is no reason to suppose that the managers of the State Highway Department have less capacity to supervise and inspect their construction *33projects than private operators, that teachers working in school districts are more negligent or cause more injuries to their students than those working in private schools,13 or that the state has less ability to control supervisory employees of a state hospital than, say, the board of trustees of a private hospital. The cost to the State Highway Department, school districts, and state hospitals resulting from the imposition of liability should be no greater than the burden now borne by private operators. Government is not impecunious or disadvantaged in comparison to private operators.
To be sure, money paid for tort damage is not available for other governmental purposes. This is also true of funds required to be paid under the Equal Protection Clause to furnish free transcripts and provide assigned counsel for indigent persons. This is not, again, a case of drawing a line concerning the scope of a governmental program or of regulating competing groups in society but of a preference for a highly organized, politically powerful force which asserts, so far successfully, that it, in contrast with all other operators performing like functions, should be relieved of bearing a cost otherwise imposed by law on enterprises engaged in such functions.
The impact on government resulting from the imposition of tort liability in terms of reduced options on the use of money does not differ from the impact on private operators who must take into consideration in drawing their budgets the need to finance the cost of their tort liability exposures.
If the Legislature were to abolish the tort liabil*34ity of all owners of construction projects or the liability for negligence of all schools, or the tort of interference with business and economic relations or the responsibility of all employers for the intentional torts of their employees, a different question would be presented. The protection of the law would have been withdrawn but arguably not the equal protection of the laws.
IV
The Court refers to the comment of the California Law Revision Commission and its conclusion that "Government cannot merely be made liable as private persons are, for public entities are fundamentally different from private persons”. The point is entirely valid but it does not support the constitutionality of the classifications in these consolidated cases.
To be sure, "private persons do not make laws”. It is not suggested that the state is subject to tort liability for losses caused by the enactment of a statute. If the statute exceeds the constitutional law-making power of the Legislature, aggrieved persons have a remedy in the courts.
"Private persons do not issue and revoke licenses to engage in various professions and occupations.” True, and again, in general, there is a judicial remedy for failure to issue or revoke a license.
"Private persons do not quarantine sick persons and do not commit mentally disturbed persons to involuntary confinement.” Again, in general, there is a judicial remedy for improper action.
"Private persons do not prosecute and incarcerate violators of the law or administer prison systems.” No one can be prosecuted or incarcerated *35except in accordance with a statutory scheme designed to protect innocent persons from conviction.
The power to commit and incarcerate does not confer authority to mistreat inmates. To the extent the argument of the California Law Revision Commission presupposes that inmates may be subjected to mistreatment without recourse, it ignores other limitations on the powers of government which, whether or not enforced, nevertheless obtain.
"Only public entities are required to build and maintain thousands of miles of streets; sidewalks and highways.” In this instance, the state has responded and provided for liability for improper construction and failure to maintain a safe and convenient means of travel.14 This is therefore no longer an issue.
"Unlike many private persons, a public entity often cannot reduce its risk of potential liability by refusing to engage in a particular activity, for government must continue to govern and is required to furnish services that cannot be adequately provided by any other agency. Moreover, in our system of government, decision-making has been allocated among three branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial — and in many cases decisions made by the legislative and executive branches should not be subject to review in tort suits for damages, for this would take the ultimate decision-making authority away from those who are responsible politically for making the decisions.”
Indisputably, government must govern. In Mr. Justice Jackson’s famous phrase, "it is not a tort *36for government to govern.”15 It is not suggested that there should be tort liability for acts of governance.
The argument that government cannot refrain from engaging in activities in which it now engages is not without dispute. Many view with dismay the increasing tendency of government to do things that the people could do for themselves.
While the exercise of the discretionary and decisional powers of governance is peculiarly governmental, many activites in which government now engages could, arguably, be performed just as well or better by private persons with government providing funds to the extent it is thought that governmental subvention is appropriate.16
There are even those who think that it would be better if government withdrew from the business of providing educational services, either reducing or eliminating school taxes or providing the parents of school-age children with chits usable in private schools. Whether this is. a good idea is beside the point. While it is traditional for government to provide educational services, education is not a peculiarly governmental function. Neither is contracting or the design or supervision of a construction project or the operation of a mental health hospital a peculiarly governmental function. Private persons operate in all three sectors.
*37The constantly increasing scope of governmental activity is a reason for reconsidering old assumptions about the justification for governmental immunity, not for adhering to old labels and concepts:
"[T]he Crown or State is constantly enlarging the scope of its activities and the number of its servants; and there is a powerful political party which proposes to increase them indefinitely. If their dream be ever realized the whole machinery of industry and trade will be controlled by the State or Crown; almost every citizen will be in the King’s employ; almost every motor-van will be driven by a servant of the Crown; and at every turn of life the maxim that the King can do no wrong will, if it still survives, be operative. The laundry-woman who spoils our shirts, the grocer who gives us false measure, the journalist who defames us will all be servants of the Crown; and it will be impossible to pursue their employers in the Courts. It will be idle too for the ordinary citizen (if any remain) to found a claim for justice on the splendid promises of Magna Carta or the Bill of Rights.” A P Herbert, Uncommon Law, "Bold v Attorney-General,” (London, Methuen & Co, 1935), pp 294-295 (footnote omitted).
The prospect of thousands of individuals acting on behalf of a government which is unaccountable to its citizenry for injuries negligently and intentionally caused surely cannot be reconciled with the rule of law, which this Court is bound to uphold.
There are, of course, borderline cases where the issue of imposition of tort liability on government would be doubtful. Where governmental employees "are by law compelled to act directly upon persons and property, overcoming resistance if necessary”,17 it may be difficult to draw the line between *38exercise of discretion for which there can be no liability and activity for which there may be recovery.
Separating exercise of discretion from activity for which there may be recovery is, indeed, complex, and considerable deference should be given to carefully drawn legislation which seeks to draw the line. While the Legislature is in a position to address the entire subject matter comprehensively, the Court should not hold in abeyance the constitutional challenge awaiting a legislative solution at some remote future time.
V
The Court concludes "that the activity involved in this case must be regarded as a governmental function”. This narrow holding is accompanied by the statement that the Legislature has chosen "to return much of the task of determining the limits of governmental immunity to the courts. Under the present statutory scheme the judiciary, looking to past precedents (which in many cases are less than clear), must decide on a case-by-case basis which activities may be classified as governmental functions and thus entitled to immunity. Until such judicial decisions are made, which may not be until a number of years have passed, those who must try to live with this statute will encounter many areas of doubt as to whether a given activity is or is not a governmental function. Such confusion could be more quickly relieved by more legislative guidelines.”
There is no need to leave the citizens of the state, who "live with this statute”, in "doubt” for "a number of years” whether a given activity is or is not immune. This Court is now holding in abeyance over 25 cases presenting a panorama of *39activities which makes it possible to clarify at an early date the extent of the impolicy of the decision this day rendered.
I can think of no more important responsibility of this Court at this time than to grant leave to appeal in those cases and declare whether the victims of the torts there alleged are without remedy against the governmental employer of the persons who committed them.
Among the abeyance cases are actions against city and state hospitals for medical malpractice; school districts for injuries to children; city and county road commissions for negligent design and maintenance; state and county institutions for injuries suffered by inmates due to defects in design, maintenance and supervision; a city for the death of a child due to negligence in the maintenance of a drain; cities for alleged intentional torts of police officers.
In addition, hundreds of cases are being held in the circuit courts awaiting clarification by this Court. It is not responsible to advise these litigants that this Court suggests that the Legislature reconsider the question.
The constitutional issues presented by this case and the abeyance cases should be addressed and resolved by this Court now.
Under the act, it appears that the elementary school classroom and the hospital room, when operated by government, may become virtual "free fire” zones in which governmental employees may act negligently without the governmental employer being responsible under circumstances that would unquestionably generate liability if the employer were a non-governmental entity.
Until the Legislature enacts a governmental tort liability law that confines immunity to functions *40which are peculiarly governmental and without counterpart in the private sector, it is our responsibility to uphold the rule of law, the most basic premise of which is that the state, rather than being above the law, is the creature of and subject to it.18

 MCLA 691.1407; MSA 3.996(107).

 See, e.g., Borchard, Government Liability in Tort (Parts I, II, III), 34 Yale L J 1, 129, 229 (1924-25); (Parts IV, V, VI), 36 Yale L J 1, 757, 1039 (1926—27); Cooperrider, The Court, The Legislature, and Governmental Tort Liability in Michigan, 72 Mich L Rev 187, 281-282 (1973).

 "The reason for this long-continued and growing injustice in Anglo-American law rests, of course, upon a medieval English theory that 'the King can do no wrong,’ which without sufficient understanding was introduced with the common law into this country, and has survived mainly by reason of its antiquity. The facts that the conditions which, gave it birth and that the theory of absolutism which *27kept it alive in England never prevailed in this country and have since been discarded by the most monarchical countries of Europe, have nevertheless been unavailing to secure legislative reconsideration of the propriety and justification of the rule that the State is not legally liable for the torts of its officers.” Borchard, supra, 34 Yale L J 1, 2.

 Const 1963, art 1, § 1.

 US Const, art 1, § 1.

 "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” US Const, Am X.

 Const 1963, art 3, § 2. "The legislative power of the State of Michigan is vested in a senate and a house of representatives”, Const 1963, art 4, § 1, "[t]he executive power” in the Governor, Const 1963, art 5, § 1, the "judicial power” in one court of justice, Const 1963, art 6, § 1.

 "The strong language in which the complete jurisdiction of Parliament is here described is certainly inapplicable to any authority in the American States, unless it be to the people of the States when met in their primary capacity for the formation of their fundamental law; and even then there rest upon them the restraints of the Constitution of the United States, which bind them as absolutely as they do the governments which they create.” 1 Cooley, Treatise on Constitutional Limitations (8th ed), pp 174-175.

 C Black, Structure and Relationship in Constitutional Law (Baton Rouge, La, Louisiana State University Press, 1969).

 The governmental tort liability act provides for actions against a governmental agency that fails to "maintain the highway in reasonable repair so that it is reasonably safe and convenient for public travel”, MCLA 691.1402; MSA 3.996(102), for negligent operation of a motor vehicle, MCLA 691.1405; MSA 3.996(105), and failure to’"repair and maintain public buildings” and "damage resulting from a dangerous or defective condition of a public building if the governmental agency had actual or constructive knowledge of the defect and, for a reasonable time after acquiring knowledge, failed to remedy the condition or to take action reasonably necessary to protect the public against the condition”, MCLA 691.1406; MSA 3.996(106).
The act further provides that "[t]he immunity of the state shall not apply to actions to recover for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the performance of a proprietary function as herein defined. Proprietary function shall mean any activity which is conducted primarily for the purpose of producing a pecuniary profit for the state, excluding, however, any activity normally supported by taxes or fees.” MCLA 691.1413; MSA 3.996(113).

 Const 1963, art 1, § 2. "[N]or shall any State * * * deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” US Const, Am XIV, § 1.

 "That the action of state courts and judicial officers in their official capacities is to be regarded as action of the State within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, is a proposition which has long been established by decisions of this Court. That principle was given expression in the earliest cases involving the construction of the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, in Virginia v Rives, 100 US 313, 318 [25 L Ed 667, 669] (1880), this Court stated: It is doubtless true that a State may act through different agencies,— either by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial authorities; and the prohibitions of the amendment extend to all action of the State denying equal protection of the laws, whether it be action by one of these agencies or by another.’ In Ex parte Virginia, 100 US 339, 347 [25 L Ed 676, 679] (1880), the Court observed: 'A State acts by its legislative, its executive, or its judicial authorities. It can act in no other way.’ In the Civil Rights Cases, 109 US 3, 11, 17 [3 S Ct 150; 27 L Ed 835, 839, 841] (1883), this Court pointed out that the Amendment makes void 'State action of every kind’ which is inconsistent with the guaranties therein contained, and extends to manifestations of 'State authority in the shape of laws, customs, or judicial or executive proceedings.’ Language to like effect is employed no less than eighteen times during the course of that opinion.” Shelley v Kraemer, 334 US 1, 14-15; 68 S Ct 836; 92 L Ed 1161 (1948).

 A classification favoring incompetent operators to preserve their ability to compete would raise substantial issues under both the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.

 See fn 10, supra.

 Dalehite v United States, 346 US 15, 57; 73 S Ct 956; 97 L Ed 1427 (1953) (opinion by Jackson, J.).

 Government pays for much of the health care services provided to a large percentage of the population but does not employ the physicians and nurses, and builds and runs few of the hospitals in which such services are rendered.
Government pays for legal services for indigent defendants and other persons who are required to respond in state-initiated and prosecuted legal proceedings. If these services were to be provided through a public defender they would not thereby become governmental in nature.

 Cooperrider, supra, 72 Mich L Rev 187, 283.

 "One of the first actions of a loyal young Englishman who begins to study the law of the land is to read carefully the pages which are concerned with the King; and he learns with some surprise the ancient constitutional and legal principle that the King can do no wrong. He is surprised for this reason; that the whole course of his historical studies at school has led him to believe that at the material dates of English history the King was always doing wrong. Leaving out of account the past hundred years or more, in which our country has been blessed with monarchs of blameless character and reputation, the kings whose names are most firmly fixed in the national memory are those who continually did wrong, whether in a constitutional, political, social, moral, or religious sense; and I am quite sure that the familiar names of John, Charles, James, and Henry are at this moment present in your Lordships’ minds. It is not too much to say that the whole Constitution has been erected upon the assumption that the King not only is capable of doing wrong but is more likely to do wrong than other men if he is given the chance. To this hypothesis we owe the Great Charter, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement, the Habeas Corpus Act, the doctrine of Ministerial responsibility, the independence of the judiciary, the very existence of the two Houses of Parliament, and indeed, all the essential pillars in the noble fabric of the Constitution.
"It is odd, then, that this maxim should survive in a political system which was invented to contradict it, and that our forefathers, who were compelled to rebel against the practice, should have reverently retained the principle. For in origin, I suspect, these words were not so much a testimony to royal infallibility as a convenient excuse for royal misfeasance.” A P Herbert, Uncommon Law, "Bold v Attorney-General” (London, Methuen & Co, 1935), pp 292-293.