Court Opinion

ID: 9695422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:19:11.242067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:12.215708
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(concurring). I concur, as my signature attests. It seems though that something should be added to arrest an errant trend, a trend which must be due to misconception of judicial duty when a motion for leave to implead is presented (ex parte or on notice) under GCR 1963, 204.1(1). Such misconception is more or less at large, the cases before us and previous applications for leave to appeal considered. Surely it has gripped both the circuit judge and counsel for this third-party plaintiff as evidenced by proceedings below and briefs submitted here.
*58No judicial officer of Judge Holbrook’s caliber would have haled in ex parte, and then kept in despite its protest, this third-party defendant absent conviction that our Court expects such action as a matter of course under 204.1(1). The misgivings of the judge become evident as one reads each special proviso he included in the order now reviewed (the order is quoted in our opinion per curiam). Such misgivings, the ill-advised trend mentioned above, and the rather obvious fact that the present consolidated cases long since could and doubtless would have been tried to final judgment but for these discretionarily dispensable third-party proceedings; all this has spurred the next ensuing paragraphs for recording in our books. Outstanding is the fact, attested by today’s opinion of the Court, that this primary defendant could and yet may adequately protect whatever right to indemnity or contribution that may ripen in its favor against Hertel-Deyo. All it need do is await — with or without voucher1 — the outcome of the main trial and then, if compelled to pay plaintiffs, proceed to sue upon the right thus allegedly accruing.
This order for impleader of Hertel-Deyo was presented ex parte and granted ex parte. True (the primary defendant having delayed the filing of answers, some seven months, until the ex parte order was granted), such practice is technically authorized by 204.1(1). The question is whether it can be regarded as g-ood practice, and whether the bench and bar are aware that motions for impleader under 204.1(1) are not grantable as a matter of casual course. This Court, on its own motion, should answer these questions firmly.
*59The then members of this Court, and the zealot supporters of our new rules, must have failed during the annual and regional judicial meetings of 1962 to drive home the fact that third-party practice, taken literally as it was from Federal Rule 14, arrived in Michigan with representations supported by uniform Federal precedent that a motion to implead, under 204.1(1), is addressed to sound judicial discretion and that the rule creates no matter of course right to implead distinguished from the right to move to implead.2
The trial and appellate courts of the Federal system are unanimously agreed that a motion for impleader, by the primary defendant, calls up the exercise of sound judicial discretion. There is no right under Federal Rule 14 to lasso and retain a stranger who, allegedly or otherwise, may be liable to the primary defendant. See the list of Federal decisions appearing in the original and supplemental annotations of Federal Rule 14 (28 USCA, Rule 14, note 15; also the text of 1A Barron and Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 423, p 647 headed “Discretion of Court.”). Honigman and Hawkins concede this (1 Honigman and Hawkins, Michigan Court Rules Annotated, p 507). So do Needham (RJA: Special Proceedings and Appeals, 1964 Supp, pp 158, 159, quoted infra) and Gilmore (1 Michigan Civil Procedure Before Trial, pp 332, 333). Forsooth, if carefully selective consideration is not given to each 204.1(1) motion for impleader, the new rules will never succeed in measuring up to that *60trumpeted tout which accompanied their delivery to the profession in the fall of 1962.3 Before us is a significant record which proves such conclusion.
These consolidated cases, pending as they are in the not-overburdened Midland circuit on declarations and answers, could and should have been tried to judgment long ago. Had that been done, and had judgment gone against primary defendant Consumers, its right to sue Hertel-Deyo for indemnity or contribution would have remained unimpaired, by limitation or otherwise, just as it is now. See CL 1948, §§ 691.561-691.564 (Stat Ann 1959 Cum Supp §§ 27.1683[1]-27.1683[4]); CLS 1961, § 600.2925, subd (4) (Stat Ann 1962 Rev § 27A.2925, subd [4]). The only difference between the two methods of procedure is that the one pursued under 204 has delayed justice needlessly and expensively (it was bound in any reasonably foreseeable event'to result in two separate trial's anyway); whereas the former and yet available method will, yes; require payment by Consumers of an entry fee, in'the sum of ten whole dollars, for the separate potential suit of Consumers against Hertel-Deyo. Yes, the outlay of that ten dollars will hurt. But the outlay thereof should be made, when and if needful, to avoid the further confounding of justice by this new demon of procedural formalism.
Now, really, the supporters of matter-of-coprse third-party practice do not allege the extra entry-*61fee cost, of the tested and now alternate practice, as a reason for supersession of such alternate practice by the scientific new. They simply say that the new “avoids circuity of action.” But does it? Could it ever have done so here? Is it doing so in other instances where it is being employed by rote, say as candidly conceded by Consumers’ counsel at oral argument of these cases?
The tragic fact is that, since judges seated here rarely admit mistakes, Michigan is stuck with third-party practice and will not return by rule to the time tried practice of “vouching” a party claimed to be liable over. It behooves us, then, to assure that 204.1(1) practice be made applicable only to cases which from their nature will not require that the trial judge unscramble an omelet of newfangled pleadings he has painfully and expensively mixed, folded, and baked into a pretrial summary pursuant to the procedural cookbook of 1963, only to.find when he gets through that he has on his hands much more “circuity of action,” the dissection of which can be accomplished only by resort to separate trials under GrCB 1963, 505.2. Sure, if the ease at hand discloses a genuine need for application of Buie 204.1(1), let that rule be applied. But let there be real need, not just professional tactics. The discretionary denial of a motion under 204.1(1) leaves all substantive rights intact for advancement when, if at all, the movant is hurt by payment or loss of some other property right.
A part of what is deplored here must be attributed to the inexplicable invitation to ex parte practice 204.1(1) extends.4 Another is manifestly due to the *62introduction into Michigan practice of the “matter of course” suggestions which appear in 1 Honigman and Hawkins, Michigan Court Rules Annotated, p 507; also to that sentence which reads (same page):
“Where the motion [for leave to implead] is seasonably made, there will be few cases in which it should be denied.”
Although no reference to authority was cited in support of the sentence just quoted, it appears as having been lifted directly from the correspondingly unsupported text of 1A Barron and Holtzoff at pages 648, 649. If the quoted sentence is right for Federal practice, it is wrong for Michigan practice. It is wrong enough to suggest that the reverse should be Michigan’s watchword. The reason lies in the difference between the classes of litigation which flow regularly through the two jurisdictions; also in the fact that “a Federal case,” unlike most State cases, is ordinarily weighty enough to carry the cost and put up with the delays of third-party and other similar before-trial maneuverings.
The antitrust conspiracy cases, the maritime cases, the patent and copyright controversies, the mass of complex litigation arising under Federal statutes, to mention a few only of the types that are generally unknown in Michigan probate and circuit courts, are regularly susceptible of third-party practice. As for jurisdictional Michigan, however, what general type of litigation, not based on contractual relationships, is thus susceptible or subject to “matter of course” treatment under 204.1(1) ? There is none.
Summary: The principled moral of all this is that every ex parte motion to implead under 204.1 *63(1) should be flatly denied; also that, even when presented on notice, it should be denied in favor of traditional practice if doubt remains as to its real purpose. Michigan got along very well for more than a century without third-party practice, which remark returns thought to the cases of these plaintiffs. They are classic examples of what happens when motions pursuant to that practice are not carefully scanned for worth against:
“(1) The probability of delay, United States v. Jollimore (D Mass, 1949), 2 FRD 148.
“(2) Complications of the trial, McPherrin v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co. (D Neb, 1940), 1 FRD 88.
“(3) The timeliness of the motion, Casey v. Calmar Steamship Corp. (D Del, 1956), 138 F Supp 751.
“(4) The similarity of evidence, Jones v. Waterman Steamship Corp. (CA 3, 1946), 155 F2d 992.
“(5) The possibility of prejudice to the plaintiff, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation v. National Surety Corp. (ED Wis, 1950), 13 FRD 201; Casey v. Calmar Steamship Corp., supra.
“(6) Possibility of prejudice to third-party defendant, American Fidelity & Casualty Co. v. Greyhound Corp. (CA 5, 1956) 232 F2d 89.”5
The -words of one Federal district judge, fed up as he was with indiscriminate grant of motions to implead third-party defendants, will serve to end this separate composition. Noting that three previous decisions in his district had gone the other way “of course,” and that of the four cases examined by him only Buchholz v. Michigan Motor Freight Lines, Inc. (ED Mich, 1956), 19 FRD 407, stood for his views, the judge tested carefully the third-party complaint before him (which as to judicially noticeable purpose was much like those of *64Consumers here). He concluded (Goodhart v. United States Lines Company [SD NY, 1960], 26 FRD 163-165):
“I recognize that three earlier decisions in this district have gone the other way, the third expressly proceeding on the ground of the desirability of maintaining a uniform approach and consistent answer to such motions. Much as I would like to keep in step with my brethren my conviction against the practice of joining straw-man defendants is so strong that I feel that a precedent following that conviction ought to be recorded before the present trend becomes ingrained.”

 See comment “5. Vouching in” (1 Honigman and Hawkins, Michigan Court Rules Annotated, p 510), Grant v. Maslen, 151 Mich 466 (16 LRA NS 910), and Grand Rapids Lumber Co. v. Blair, 190 Mich 518.

 The amendment of Federal Rule 14, effective July 1, 1963, has not been overlooked. See 28 USCA, Rules 12 to 16, 1964 Cum Pocket Part p 45, and 1A Barron and Holtzoff, Federal Practice and Procedure, 1964 Pocket Part, § 421, p 86. As said of the 1963 amendment, in National Fire Ins. Co. v. Daniel J. Keating Co., 35 FRD 137, 140:
“Impleader under Rule 14 has quite consistently been held to be within the sound discretion of the court, and this discretion has not been impaired by the 1963 amendment.”

 In the “Introduction” to the GCR of 1963 and the BJA of 1961, which appears in the special pamphlet issued by West Publishing Company to the Michigan bench and bar in 1962, this concluding sentence appears:
“As these new laws of procedure become more fully understood and utilized, they will earn recognition as- the greatest achievement of 'óur generation in advancing the eause of the improvement in administration of justice in this State.”
It must be that Rule 204 is -not as yet .“fully understood and utilized.” So far its experieneo in Michigan does not tend to support that advance billing, “the greatest achievement of our generation.”

 Why Rule 204.1(1) invites or permits ex parte action eludes me, even after having read tomes about the theoretical glories of third-party practice. No one as yet has given an understandable reason for peremptory action under the rule. Indeed, action of that kind is more *62than apt to put the judge on the psychosomatic defensive when he is asked to vacate or dissolve what without notiee he has done.
This last, by the way, is one of the reasons for our recent restriction against issuance of injunctions ex parte. See GCR 1963, 718. If there is need for restriction there, surely there is need for outright elimination of ex parte action under 204.1(1).

 Needham, RJA: Special Proceedings and Appeals, 1964 Supp, p 159; 1 Gilmore, Michigan Civil Procedure Before Trial, p 333.