Court Opinion

ID: 9696142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:38:09.331934+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:18.645063
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). Plaintiff sued defendant The Detroit News, Inc., a Michigan corporation, in the Wayne circuit. His declaration alleges that the defendant “is a Michigan corporation with its main place of business in the city of Detroit”; that his assignor, “whose name defendant well knows, was employed on the editorial staff of said defendant for a period of approximately 24 years prior to his retirement in June of 1949”; that prior to retirement of plaintiff’s assignor “the editor of said defendant” promised and agreed to pay said assignor, upon and following his retirement, “an adequate retirement sum supplemental and in addition to the monthly sums received under the regular employees’ retirement plan”; that in consideration of such promise said assignor voluntarily retired in June of 1949, “giving up his employment with defendant at a salary approximating $10,000 a year,” and that the defendant, “by and through its editor,” thereafter repudiated the pleaded promise, thus giving rise to the declared cause (damages for breach).
The defendant promptly answered. The first allegation quoted above was admitted. The remainder of such allegations were denied. Some 18 months later, and after the limitational statute had run its course, plaintiff moved to amend the summons and declaration “by correcting and changing the name of the defendant ‘The Detroit News, Inc., a Michigan corporation,’ to The Detroit News or to The Evening *643News Association, a Michigan corporation,- doing business as The Detroit News, or to the proper name of the entity of which A. M. Smith [plaintiff’s assignor] was an employee and against .whom the plaintiff’s cause of action as set forth in the declaration, exists.” Plaintiff’s motion was denied, and he appeals.
The defendant insists" that it’ was and is before the court as a properly sued defendant, and that it is responsible in damages to plaintiff provided plaintiff can and does establish, to .the satisfaction of court and jury, the allegations of his declaration as filed. I agree. This is not a case of suit commenced against a nonexistent or misnamed defendant. The bald fact is that plaintiff is attempting, after lapse" of the statutory period, to sue a defendant or. defendants in the present cause who once were separately and properly suable by him,. and now are not. The statute cannot be evaded in such manner by one whose protracted slumber is the sole cause of his predicament.
I would affirm on authority of Price v. Delano, 187 Mich 49, noting as did Mr. Justice Bird, in .that case that “The failure of the return to show a valid service on the defendant proposed to be substituted clearly distinguishes this case from Daly v. Blair, 183 Mich 351.” Here, so there be no misunderstanding, is the return of service on the present defendant:
“I hereby certify and return that, on this 23d day of March A. D. 1956, at 615 West Lafayette blvd., Detroit, Michigan, I served the within summons upon THE DETROIT NEWS, INC., a Michigan corporation, by delivering same to Barbara Reid, secretary to N. J. Nicholl, its agent and business manager, defendant named in said summons, by then and there showing to her for said above named defendant the within summons, with the seal of the court impressed *644thereon, and delivering to said defendant a true copy of said summons.”
Kelly, J., concurred with Black, J.