Court Opinion

ID: 9720612
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 08:37:30.165251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:19.938568
License: Public Domain

O’Hara, J.
(dissenting). Plaintiff, mother of Steven Bobertson and executrix of his estate, *93brought suit under the dramshop act, MCLA § 436.22 (Stat Ann 1970 Cum Supp §18.993). Plaintiff’s decedent was killed in an automobile crash while riding as a passenger.
Defendant, Sam Y, Inc., filed a motion for summary judgment on the ground that the plaintiff executrix was not the proper party to bring this action under the provisions of the dramshop act.
The sole question on appeal is whether the personal representative of the decedent is a proper party plaintiff under the dramshop act.
It became apparent after our first post-hearing conference that I would represent a minority view. I will be brief.
I accord to our Supreme Court the natural, normal, everyday meaning of its decisional language. I do the same in the interpretation of a statute in an attempt to ascertain legislative intent. Ergo, when the Supreme Court says unequivocally, “under the dramshop act the personal representative of the decedent is not a proper party plaintiff”, Genesee Merchants Bank & Trust Company v. Bourrie (1965), 375 Mich 383, 389 (emphasis supplied), to me it meant exactly what it said. I find no occasion to seek out esoteric differentiations which would render this clear decisional language applicable here, inapplicable there, and possibly applicable or inapplicable somewhere else. Such is the plague of our profession.1
I would affirm the trial judge. Costs to the defendants.

 I am not unaware of Plowman v. Satkowiak (1970), 22 Mich App 425. I do not attempt to reconcile the unreconeilable.