Court Opinion

ID: 9729539
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:41:39.776336+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:59.345199
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). We have in this State a rule of statutory construction which — for this case —will bear repeating. It is that a long continued construction, given a long-standing statute by executive officers charged with its execution and administration (no one meanwhile having questioned such construction so far as our reports disclose), is entitled to most respectful consideration and will not be overruled without cogent reasons.
Michigan cases to the point are gathered in 16 Callaghan’s Michigan Digest, Statutes §§ 109, 110, pp 494-496. Particularly as in today’s instance, where the source of construction is a mature and hitherto unquestioned opinion of the official adviser of the State government, should that rule be taken into deliberative consideration. See, as dealing with the interpretational respect due such an opinion, the case of Johnson v. Ballou, 28 Mich 379, at 384. The Court’s opinion on that occasion was written by Mr, Justice Cooley,
*100In 1929 Attorney General Brucker was called upon to decide today’s question of statutory construction. He ruled that, under the amendment of PA 1929, No 290, which amendment duplicated in pertinent substance How Stat, § 7135a,1 it “would seem to be safe to hold that the provisions of section 2 2 * * * authorizing the issuance of a warrant in game law violation cases without either the approval of the prosecutor or the posting of security for costs are an exception to the general provision set forth in PA 1929, No 290, requiring the posting of security for costs or the written approval of the prosecutor in all cases.” OAG biennial report 1928-1930, pp 658, 659.
I would adhere to the foregoing opinion, not only in view of the rule of construction mentioned above but also in view of what was written for People v. Griswold, 64 Mich 722. As for the proposal that Griswold be overruled, I point to considerations as follows. For more than three quarters of a century Griswold (a unanimous rather than divisive opinion), followed unanimously in the meantime by People v. O’Hara, 278 Mich 281, 293, has stood in our trial courts as dependable precedent for the jurisdictional principle Justice Adams has quoted therefrom.3 For no reason whatever as I perceive, save only that Griswold is looked upon by some here as bad law for today’s times, it is moved that we hold that this justice of the peace “had no jurisdic- tion” for want of written authorization by the pros- ecuting attorney of the warrant as issued; the war- rant that prosecutor pursued later by successful prosecution. I cannot agree for reasons appearing in Griswold; also for reasons made plain over my *101signature in the Halfacre Case (Halfacre v. Paragon Bridge & Steel Co., 368 Mich 366), at 384-389.
I would add this observation. In view of currently broached legal thought, that like overrulings in criminal cases are retroactively effective, any holding that the justice in cases as at bar has no jurisdiction to proceed is bound to provoke another group of appeals for newly defined and retroactively guaranteed due process. This is all so unnecessary, there being no persuasive reason for overrulement as proposed and the question of liking Griswold or liking it not being primarily one for legislative consideration. Surely, here, the doctrines of “legislative acquiescence” and “legislative acceptance” have come to fully effective flower.
There is, I fear, an all too easygoing tendency in our midst to overrule long since settled and unanimous but unsatisfactory constructions of standing statutes. Consider Half acre, supra,; also Wallace v. Tripp, 358 Mich 668, 681; Harris v. City of Detroit, 367 Mich 526, 536-539, and now In re Carey, 372 Mich 378, 382.
I, too, believe that provably errant precedent of statutory construction, especially that which is of recent origin and is opposed by vigorous and portentously predictive dissent, should be overruled. See, for instance, the contribution made by the undersigned to Park v. Employment Security Commission, 355 Mich 101, at 141-151. But, as pointed out in that contribution, stare decisis is the rule, and overrulement is the exception. The exception, to justify its application, calls for something more than contemporaneous disfavor.
No other presented question warrants discussion. I would affirm.
J. Dethmers and Kelly, JJ., concurred with Black,

 The same substance was re-enacted by PA 1958, No 136.

 Reference is to conservation act, game and fish enforcement, now found in CLS 1961, § 300.12 (Stat Ann 1958 Rev § 13.222).&emdash;Re- porter.

 See treatment of Griswold in 1 Gillespie, Michigan Criminal Law and Procedure (2d), § 186, p 221.