Court Opinion

ID: 9721478
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:00:18.692843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:26.188046
License: Public Domain

T. E. Brennan, J.
(dissenting). I decline to join with my Brothers in this enlargement of the constitutional concept of equal protection of the laws.
My Brother has written that the statutory requirement of notice contained in 1964 PA 170, as amended, being MCLA 691.1401 et seq.; MSA 3.996(101) et seq., which is contained in § 4 of the Act (MCLA 691.1404; MSA 3.996[104]), is constitutionally invalid as a denial of equal protection of the laws to those persons injured as a result of the negligence of a governmental agency.
The reasoning goes something like this; people injured by private individuals are not required to give any notice of the occurrence of the injury or defect causing the injury. People injured by the negligence of governmental agencies are required to give such notice. This is not fair, so the argument goes, and it invidiously discriminates against that class of persons who are injured by the negligence of governmental agencies. By such folksy rationale, an act of the legislature is summarily disposed of.
*626The process of judicial repeal of legislative enactments set in motion with this decision will run as far as judicial caprice will carry it. It will now be the fashion for judges to throw out all differentials in statutes of limitations. The obvious place to start, we would suppose, is with MCLA 691.1411; MSA 3.996(111), establishing a statute of limitation of two years for injuries arising out of defective highway. Consider the pregnant field for judicial legislation in MCLA 600.5805, 600.5807, 600.5809, 600.5811, and 600.5813; MSA 27A.5805, 27A.5807, 27A.5809, 27A.5811, and 27A.5813. How busy we can be declaring that various periods of limitations divide potential persons into classes and waving our magic wand to annul such legislation. There is no limitation, it seems, to the ingenuity of judges who disagree with the legislature. What a pity that the American experiment in self-government has in 200 years fallen upon such bad times.
There are, it seems, three co-equal branches of government in name only. Like the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, some are more equal than others. I prefer the more traditional and historical approach. The legislature has declared governmental immunity from tort liability. The legislature has provided specific exceptions to that standard. The legislature has imposed specific conditions upon the exceptional instances of governmental liability. The legislature has the power to make these laws. This Court far exceeds its proper function when it declares this enactment unfair and unenforceable. Were I a member of the legislature, I would be sore tempted in the face of this judicial usurpation to support legislation refusing to appropriate any funds to pay any judgments rendered by any courts where the statutory notice requirements have been ignored or judicially disregarded.