Court Opinion

ID: 9711097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:24:28.056207+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:02.320133
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). Continuously since Williams v. City of Detroit, 364 Mich 231, 282-290, came to initial consideration in 1960, the undersigned has tried to interest other Justices in regular employment of the principle that, when overrulement of a standing succession of unanimous decisions is brought to necessitous consideration, the Court should proceed, if at all, as Mr. Justice Cardozo proposed shortly before he was sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, that is, by action of prospective nature. See the Justice’s address of January 22,1932; Vol 55, Report of New York State *683Bar Association, 262, 295-297 (quoted post). Nonetheless, broken only by 1960 Parker v. Port Huron Hospital, 361 Mich 1, 26-28; the separate opinion Justices O’Hara and Kavanagh indorsed for 1965 Myers v. Genesee County Auditor, 375 Mich 1, 11, and Justice O’Hara’s separate opinion of 1965 Mosier v. Carney, 376 Mich 532, 607, the continued silence of most members of the Court suggests markedly that they do not realize the need for due judicial care to avoid the outright manufacture, by gross judicial negligence, of no end of civil litigation and appeals by convicts for process that simply was not due them — “under law” — at the time of conviction.1
Not so elsewhere, however. See Linkletter v. Walker (1965), 381 US 618 (85 S Ct 1731, 14 L ed 2d 601); Tehan v. United States, ex rel. Shott (1966), 382 US 406 (86 S Ct 459, 15 L ed 2d 453); and Johnson v. New Jersey (1966), 384 US 719 (86 S Ct 1772, 16 L ed 2d 882). The beneficial principle of prospective overrulement is simply a law of compulsive necessity born of the needs of a people meaning to live “under law” as law legally has been made known to them; not law they must guess beforehand may come to enactment by a then unknown coterie of subsequently elevated Justices. Nowadays, in our State, it is' more than difficult for office lawyers, as well as trial lawyers and trial judges, to estimate beforehand just what tack or tacks a presently seated majority of Justices will take with respect to settled previous decisions, and there we find the prime cause of that serious trouble in which our “one court of justice” finds itself. Dependable precedent? Why there is none.
Parker, mentioned above, was a decision in which the writer did not participate. In that case Justice *684Kavanagh, supported by Justice Souris and 2 other since-departed Brethren, referred first to the Sunburst Case (287 US 358) and then proceeded to select for application, from Griffin v. Illinois, 351 US 12, 25, 26, the separate views of Justice Frankfurter. That there may be no misunderstanding as regards words then employed, the exact phrases Justices Kavanagh and Souris indorsed for Parker appear below (Parker at 26, 27):
“However, we believe the following statement of Justice Frankfurter concurring in Griffin v. Illinois, 351 US 12, 25, 26 (76 S Ct 585, 100 L ed 891, 55 ALR 2d 1055), is peculiarly applicable to the instant case:
“ ‘Candor compels acknowledgment that the decision rendered today is a new ruling. * * * It is much more conducive to law’s self-respect to recognize candidly the considerations that give prospective content to a new pronouncement of law. That this is consonant with the spirit of our law and justified by those considerations of reason which should dominate the law, has been luminously expounded by Mr. Justice Cardozo, shortly before he came here and in an opinion which he wrote for the court. See Address of Chief Judge Cardozo, 55 Report of New York State Bar Association, 263, 294 et seq., and Great Northern R. Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co., 287 US 358, 363-366 (53 S Ct 145, 77 L ed 360, 85 ALR 254). Such a molding of law, by way of adjudication, is peculiarly applicable to the problem at hand. The rule of law announced this day should be delimited as indicated.’ ”
As for the merit of today’s specific criticism of Stone v. Smith, 275 Mich 344, Hoffman v. Parker Monument Co., 290 Mich 394 and the offspring they have spawned (our error of reliance upon Stone, in Benton Harbor Malleable Industries v. General Motors Corporation, 358 Mich 684, 688, included), there *685is no contest. Tlie appeal board’s unanimous opinion on remand, entered below August 16, 1965, sets forth unanswerable reasons for declaring openly that Stone and Hoffman each exhibited a colossus lapsus. To those reasons I would add this thought:
When the Court in Stone and Hoffman depended for decision upon its declaration that the statute included no authority for continuity of administrative consideration and determination of a deceased employee’s previously filed claim, the Justices must have overlooked then section 16 of “Part 3 — Procedure.” At the time of handing down of Stone and Hoffman said section 16 read (CL 1929, § 8455):
“All questions arising under this act, if not settled by agreement by the parties interested therein, shall, except as otherwise herein provided, be determined by the industrial accident board.”2
There being nothing “otherwise herein provided” in the workmen’s compensation law, this section necessarily directed administrative determination, on behalf of the respective personal representatives of claimants Stone and Inch (the latter in Hoffman), of that which the Court in Stone and Hoffman said *686could not be done within the structure of the workmen’s compensation law. Further, then section 13 of said part 3, consistently with section 16 as quoted, authorized circuit court suit upon “the decision of such industrial accident board * * * providing for payment of compensation under this act” (CL 1929, § 8452; amended by PA 1934 [1st Ex Sess], No 15).3
This is one of those rare cases where, a determination to overrule having been made, the facts are such as render it advisable that the determination apply solely as set forth in the penultimate paragraph of this opinion; otherwise prospectively.4 In that connection our order of remand of this Siebert Case (entered April 14, 1965) proceeds:
, “It is further ordered, on the Court’s own motion, that this cause be remanded to the appeal board of the workmen’s compensation department for consideration of the right of claimant’s administrator to the award made by the appeal board in behalf of the claimant on August 18, 1964, consideration of the administrator’s claim to be made in conjunction with other like cases such as Mazur v. Hygrade Food Products Corporation heretofore remanded to the appeal board, and now pending before said appeal board. Upon determination of the administrator’s claim by the appeal board, any party hereto may seek appellate review by application for leave to appeal directly to this Court as if such decision had been made on August 18, 1964.”
The facts mentioned above are:
As held by the hearing referee October 20, 1962, and affirmed August 18, 1964, by the appeal board, *687Magnus Larson suffered a compensable injury September 28,1959. As further held by the referee and appeal board, that injury entitled Magnus to compensation at the continuing rate of $33 per week for total disability; also to payment of all of his statutorily covered medical and hospital expenses. As of the date of Magnus’ death the aggregate of these sums amounted to something in excess of $10,000, plus accrued “interest thereon at the rate of 5% per annum from the date each payment was due until paid.” "We know now that Magnus, aged 66 years and 6 months at the time of injury and aged 71 years and 4-1/2 months at the time of death (August 17, 1964), was entitled month after month and year after year to the benefits which the appeal board awarded posthumously (the day after Mag-nus deceased). We know, too, that the defendant employer and insurer relied upon no “law” (such as Stone v. Smith and Hoffman v. Parker Monument Co.) as they went about the continuity of their denial of liability between September 29, 1960 (date of filing of their “Notice of Dispute”), and the date Mag-nus died. They did instead rely specifically and solely upon this:
“6. Nature of Dispute — Employee did not receive a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment, nor was he disabled because of a personal injury which was due to causes and conditions which were characteristic of and peculiar to the business of the employer and which arose out of and in the course of the employment”;
plus claim that Magnus’ notice of injury and claim for compensation were not timely.
Stone and Hoffman should be overruled expressly, but not retroactively as in 5-3 Mosier v. Carney, 376 Mich 532 and Autio v. Proksch Construction Company, 377 Mich 517; also that other 5-3 over*688rulement we are studying anew (People v. Holbrook, 373 Mich 94). Tbe case is ripe for the kind of overrulement for which Justices O’Hara and T. M. Kavanagh stood (without benefit of distinctive facts as above) in Myers v. Genesee County Auditor, supra. So the spear-pointed question for the remaining retroactivists of the Court is whether they are willing to recede from their successively recorded determinations that, when overrulement is to be voted, the impact must be nunc pro tunc; all the way back.
I would overrule Stone and Hoffman with exclusive prospectivity, subject only to application of such overrulement to the case at bar and other claims including those pending below, or which have been filed since our order of remand in the present case on April 14, 1965, where it is shown that the employee died prior to determination of what he lawfully might have claimed had he continued to live.5
Should a majority of the 7 participating Justices disagree with overrulement as thus recommended, then my vote will be cast reluctantly with that of Justice Kelly- — to reverse for denial of benefits.
Brennan, J., took no part in the decision of this case.

 See Justice O’Haka’s separate opinion of In re Palmer, 371 Mich 656, 666, 667, concurring with 5 other Justices in the result of that case.

 Since 1943 this section has read (CL 1948, § 413.16 [Stat Ann 1960 Bev § 17.190]) : “All questions arising under this act shall.be determined by the compensation commission.”
Also, since 1943, section 6 of part 3 has read (CL 1948, § 413.6 [Stat Ann 1960 Bev § 17.180] ) :
“See. 6. Any controversy concerning compensation shall be submitted to the compensation commission. Neither the payment of compensation nor the accepting of the same by the employee or his dependents, nor^the signing of receipts therefor, shall be considered as a determination of the rights of the parties under this act.”
See, also, the reeent amendment of section 12 of part 2 (CL 1948 § 412.12) made by PA 1965, No 230. The amendment destroyed prospectively the “abatement” rule of Stone and Hoffman and their subsequent kindred; making provision however for payment of compensation accruing before the employee’s death, not to Ms personal representative but to “the same beneficiaries and in the same amounts as would have been payable if the employee had suffered a compensable injury resulting in death” (Stat Ann 1965 Cum Supp § 17.162).

 Section 13 is now officially cited as OL 1948, § 413.13 (Stat Ann 1960 Bev § 17.187).

 That is what the Court did in the case which overruled the common-law doctrine oí imputed negligence (Bricker v. Green, 313 Mich 218 [163 ALR 697]).

 I repeat that there is present here no element of reliance by a litigant or lawyer upon an established rule of law as he goes about preparing his ease or defense and consideration of the amount or amounts of settlement offers he has made or his antagonist has made. In all instances of such reliance overrulement should be declared as Justice Cardozo recommended (address of January 22, 1932, supra, quoted in Williams v. City of Detroit, 364 Mich 231, at 282, 283): “Dor such cases and others where a retroactive declaration is for any reason inexpedient, I find myself driven more and more to the belief that courts should be competent to follow the practice proposed by Mr. Wigmore in his suggestive little book 'The Problems of Law’ and since espoused by others; they should apply the outworn rule to the ease that is then at hand, and couple their judgment with the declaration that they will feel free to apply another rule to transactions consummated in the future.”