Court Opinion

ID: 9594193
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:27:52.06698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:59:28.868258
License: Public Domain

Weaver, J.
0concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur with the reasoning and result of the majority opinion parts i, n, m, and iv. I dissent from the majority’s proposed remedy and instead concur with Justice Brickley’s reasoning and conclusion that a declaratory judgment is appropriate in these consolidated cases.
I write separately to add that I believe that declaratory judgment is the best way to insure that the tax*233payers are not forced to carry the burden, for a second time, of the underfunded mandates. Further, if the majority wishes to insure taxpayer relief, see ante, p 216, with their judicially created, arbitrary award of money damages, it should mandate that the school districts directly return all the money damages to the taxpayers rather than rely on “the expectation that the democratic process will inform and shape distribution of the award.” Ante, p 215. The majority’s instructions leave the door open for a recalcitrant or well-meaning school district not to refund even a penny to the taxpayer and to create for itself a windfall from the money damages. Meanwhile, the average taxpayer on the street (who may not even know about the case and probably at most wall be entitled to a $100 refund) will have neither the knowledge, the time, nor the energy to try through “the democratic process” to get a refund that the majority says he is entitled to without having to argue with the school board or file another lawsuit.1
The “democratic process” has already made clear, through the taxpayer-initiated enactment of the Headlee Amendment and through Proposal A, that the taxpayer is tired of being burdened by state and local governments.

 Contrary to the majority’s misleading statement, ante, p 214, that the dissenters believe that the taxpayers are not the appropriate recipients of monetary relief in these cases, it is precisely the taxpayer’s wallets that the dissenters seek to reheve with a declaratory judgment. A declaratory judgment insures that the taxpayers will not pay a second time for services already received.