Court Opinion

ID: 9723291
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:10:29.559072+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:46.649305
License: Public Domain

Kavanagh, C. J.
(dissenting). The Adrian city ordinance involved here, identical to the statute condemned in American Motorcycle Association v Department of State Police, 11 Mich App 351; 158 NW2d 72 (1968), is an unconstitutional infringement on the individual’s right to privacy.
"[A]n individual is free to do whatever he pleases, so long as he does not interfere with the rights of his neighbor or of society, and no government — state or *322Federal — has been ceded the authority to interfere with that freedom.” People v Sinclair, 387 Mich 91, 133; 194 NW2d 878 (1972) (Kavanagh, J., dissenting).
The protection of an individual from himself is not among the proper functions of government.
"[Otherwise, there would be no restriction or limitation to this power, and the State could regulate an individual’s life, his way of living, and even his way of thinking. The statute is not concerned with the preservation of public safety, health, order, morals, or welfare; and though the headgear requirement may be beneficent, nevertheless, it is unconstitutional because it attempts to infringe upon and stifle the fundamental personal right of liberty, under which each individual may act as he sees fit to preserve his own safety if he does not harm others in doing so.
"The fact that the general public may consider it foolhardy to ride a motorcycle without a safety helmet is alone insufficient basis or justification for defining the nonuse of a helmet a criminal offense. I believe that our State Constitution affords one the privilege of making a fool of himself if he so desires, so long as his action does not bring significant harm to the general public.” State v Cotton, 55 Hawaii 138, 147-148; 516 P2d 709, 714-715 (1973) (dissenting opinion).
In State v Acker, 26 Utah 2d 104, 111; 485 P2d 1038, 1043 (1971), Justice Crockett, dissenting, stated forthrightly the danger of upholding such laws as this:
"The statute here under consideration joins the onward march of the ever-increasing volumes of regulatory laws concerning which it is extremely questionable whether the benefits outweigh the burdens in the loss of personal freedoms and the expanding bureaucracy involved in their enforcement. I have interposed this dissent as an objection to what appears to be a limitless process of spreading tentacles of control into what *323ought to be matters of personal and private conduct. There ought to be a halt somewhere, and in my judgment this law reaches that point.”
As the Court of Appeals correctly observed in American Motorcycle Association v Department of State Police, supra, "This statute has a relationship to the protection of the individual motorcyclist from himself, but not to the public health, safety, and welfare”. 11 Mich App 351, 358; 158 NW2d 72 (1968).
The judgment of the trial court that the ordinance is unconstitutional should be reinstated.