Court Opinion

ID: 9720691
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:39:34.147834+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:20.692410
License: Public Domain

T. G. Kavanagh, J.
In December of 1965, the plaintiff, Leo Maki, went to the defendant’s city *155dump to discard some refuse. He dumped the refuse at an area designated by the attendant city employee and then remained to talk to the attendant. While inquiring about a bicycle part, a small explosion occurred in a nearby refuse fire and the plaintiff was struck in the left eye by what appeared to be a .22 caliber bullet.
The plaintiff later lost the use of his left eye and he sued the defendant city for his ensuing disability.
The plaintiff originally based his claim upon negligence and counts of gross negligence and nuisance were later added. In answer, the city filed a motion for accelerated judgment asserting that 1964 PA 1964, No 170, § 7 (MCLA § 691.1407; Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 3.996 [107]) held them immune from such a suit. The circuit judge denied the defendant’s motion stating that the foresaid § 7 was unconstitutional as it did not fall within the object embraced in the title of the act. With the defendant thus stripped of immunity and after the plaintiff had voluntarily struck from his complaint his allegations of negligence and gross negligence the case proceeded to a jury trial solely on the theory of nuisance. The jury returned a verdict of $12,500 for the plaintiff and found unanimously on a special finding that the city had not maintained an intentional nuisance but did find on a vote of ten to two the the city had maintained a nuisance arising “out of the manner of operation”.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial judge and the defendant appealed to this Court.
The governmental immunity statute, PA 1964, No 170 § 7 (MCLA § 691.1407; Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 3.996 [107]) states:
“Except as in this act otherwise provided, all governmental agencies shall be immune from tort *156liability in all cases wherein said government agency is engaged in the exercise and discharge of a governmental function. Except as otherwise provided herein, this act shall not he construed as modifying or restricting the immunity of the state from tort liability as it existed heretofore, which immunity is hereby affirmed.” (Emphasis added.)
The plaintiff claims that the created immunity of § 7 encompasses on its face immunity from all tort liability and if such is the scope of § 7, plaintiff claims it would create a broader and more inclusive governmental immunity than is expressed in the title to PA 1964, No 170:
“An act to make uniform the liability of municipal corporations, political subdivisions, and the state, its agencies and departments, when engaged in a governmental function, for injuries to property and persons caused by negligence; to define and limit such liability; to define and limit the liability of the state when engaged in a proprietary function; to authorize the purchase of liability insurance to protect against loss arising out of such liability; to provide for defending certain claims made against public officers and paying damages sought or awarded against them; and to repeal certain acts and parts of acts.” (Emphasis supplied.)
If the act’s created immunity from “tort liability” is broader in reach than the title’s immunity “for injuries to property and persons caused by negligence”, the plaintiff claims § 7 would violate the prohibition of Const 1963, art 4, § 24 that no law shall embrace more than one object which shall be expressed in its title.
In 1888 we quoted the observations made in Justice Cooley’s treatise on Constitutional limitations on our duty in determining whether an act was with*157in the scope of its title. As in other areas his comments are still relevant today:
“ ‘As the legislature may make the title to an act as restrictive as they please, it is obvious that they may sometimes so frame it as to preclude many matters being included in the act which might, with entire propriety, have been embraced in one enactment with the matters indicated by the title, but which must now be excluded because the title has been made unnecessarily restrictive. The courts cannot enlarge the scope of the title. They are invested with no dispensing power. The constitution has made the title the conclusive index to the legislative intent as to what shall have operation. It is no answer to say that the title might have been made more comprehensive, if in fact the legislature have not seen fit to make it so.’ ” In the Matter of Charles Hauck (1888), 70 Mich 396, 403.
We have often held that this constitutional stricture on statutory enactments was not a hollow formality. MacLean v. State Board of Control for Vocational Education (1940), 294 Mich. 45 synopsizes our consistent adherence to the principle that an act shall not exceed the scope of its title. We said in MacLean: pp 48, 49:
“The constitutional provision was designed mainly to prevent the legislature from passing laws not fully understood, Thomas v. Collins [1885], 58 Mich 64; it was intended that the legislature, in passing an act, should be fairly notified of its design, Attorney General, ex rel. Longyear, v. Weiner [1886], 59 Mich 580; and that legislatures and parties interested might understand from the title that only provisions germane to the object therein expressed would be enacted, Blades v. Board of Water Commissioners of Detroit [1899], 122 Mich 366; and to avoid bringing into one bill subjects diverse in their nature and having no necessary connection, but *158with a view to combining in their favor the advocates of all — or what is commonly spoken of as logrolling in legislation. State Mutual Rodded Fire Ins. Co. v. Foster [1934], 267 Mich 118.”
The title to PA 1964, No 170 indicates that the act should create immunity for governmental acts of negligence. However, the act itself, in § 7, creates immunity for the much broader area of governmental torts. It is apparent from even a cursory examination of any legal encyclopedia or dictionary that an action based on “negligence” is a species of a generic action based in torts. As the trial judge pointed out, the headings in Prosser on Torts refer to actions based on nuisance, direct trespass, assault and battery, false arrest, deceit, defamation, abuse of process, malicious prosecution and economic duress — all of which are tort actions apart from negligence and all of which might be brought against a governmental body.
It would appear, then, that to hold § 7 constitutional we would be required to reduce the scope of the government’s § 7 immunity from immunity for all “torts” to immunity from “torts caused by negligence”. Such an interpretation, however would require this Court to engage in judicial legislation.1
Such interpretation in the name of preserving a statute’s constitutionality2 would exhaust Const 1963, art 4, § 243 of all meaning. “Negligence” and “tort” remain legal terms of art and while their *159precise definitions are often elusive they are not synonymous.4 To treat them as synonymous now would be reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s Humpty-Dumpty as he scornfully chastised Alice “when I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean— neither more nor less.” We decline to overtly engage in such activity. Bather our duty and our problem
“is to construe what Congress has written. After all, Congress expresses its purpose by words. It is for us to ascertain — neither to add nor to subtract, neither to delete nor to distort.” Cases of Jam v. United States (1951), 340 US 593, 596 (71 S Ct 515, 518; 95 L Ed 566, 570). See also People v. Blumrich (1914), 183 Mich 133, 137.
So construing, we hold that § 7 exceeds the scope of its title and is therefore unconstitutional and invalid. We further hold that § 7 is independent of the remainder of PA 1964, No 170 and can therefore be severed from the act.5 The remainder of PA 1964, No 170 is otherwise complete in itself and capable of being carried out without reference to the unconstitutional § 7.6
In this posture it is unnecessary to decide what effect the nature of this nuisance recovery (i.e., “manner of operation”) has on municipal immunity.7
*160Accordingly we affirm the jury’s verdict.
No costs, a public question being involved.
T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., and Adams and Swainson, JJ., concurred with T. G. Kavanagh, J.

 We cannot say that the legislature clearly understood the impact of the distinction between “torts” and “negligence” and if they were not apprised of the different scope of the terms “tort” and “negligence” we cannot determine how they would have voted had they known the difference.

 See for example State Bar of Michigan v Lansing (1960), 361 Mich 185 and Continental Motors Corporation v. Muskegon Twp. (1965), 376 Mich 170.

 “No law shall embrace more than one object, which shall be expressed in its title. * * * ”

 The action in the present case was based upon nuisance and as 39 Am Jur, Nuisances, § 4, p 282; 65 CJS, Negligence, §1(10), p 452 and King v. Columbian Carbon Co. (CA5, 1945), 152 F2d 636 all say in effect “the terms ‘nuisance’ and ‘negligence’ are not synonymous.” (King v. Columbian Carbon Co at p 638). Both are species of torts.

 MCLA § 8.5 (Stat Ann 1969 Rev §2.216). See also People v McMurchy (1930), 249 Mich 147 and Klatt v. Wayne Probate Judge (1909), 159 Mich 203.

 Rohan v. Detroit Racing Association (1946), 314 Mich 326, Manistee & N. R. Co. v. Commissioner of Railroads (1898), 118 Mich 349.

 See Williams v. Detroit (1961), 364 Mich 231.