Court Opinion

ID: 9742646
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:17:22.163342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:34.404983
License: Public Domain

Souris, J.
(dissenting). By our decision in this case, and in McDowell v. State Highway Commissioner, 365 Mich 268, all of the former1 horror of our common-law rule of governmental immunity is restored to full bloom and, by an adroit dribble in this “game of quasi-legal basketball,”2 • responsibility therefor is passed to the legislature. What we are told is that the old common-law rule of governmental immunity has become a legislative rule, subject to modification only by the legislature, by virtue of simple repeal of a prior statutory waiver of the State’s immunity.
For too long on this Court the felt need for change in “grievously unjust”3 rules of the common law has been thwarted, or at least delayed, by the fanciful notion that legislatures legislate by keeping silent. For payment of meritoriously due respects to this obstacle to performance of our oath-bound judicial duty, see Mr. Justice Talbot Smith’s opinions in Reed v. Employment Security Commission, 364 Mich 395, at p 399, and Sheppard v. Michigan National Bank, 348 Mich 577, at p 599.
*222Today, a like need is thwarted, perhaps only delayed, by an even more fanciful notion that legislatures adopt as their very own doctrines originally conceived, born and nurtured to maturity by common-law courts simply by cryptically repealing  5an intervening statutory waiver of the common-law doctrine’s grant of immunity. We are told that by this sequence of legislative waiver of judge-made governmental immunity and subsequent repeal, and by nothing more, the previously waived common-law doctrine is magically reincarnated not in its original common-law flesh and blood and bones, but rather in an ethereal legislative form,—ethereal because it cannot be found, as can other “creatures of the legislature,”5 in the State’s statute books. If its form and shape and substance are to be discerned, we must look only to the dusty reports of this Court’s decisions.
Whether PA 1943, No 237, be considered to have “repealed” or “abolished” the common-laiv doctrine or whether it be considered to have only waived the State’s immunity from liability recognized by the doctrine, its own subsequent repeal cannot have the result claimed by our majority in McDoivell and here. If Act No 237 was a waiver, as I believe it was, it left the common-law doctrine intact but waived, in express language, the State’s immunity from liability. The subsequent withdrawal of that waiver, by PA 1945, No 87 (the repealer act), did not affect the continuing vitality of the common-law doctrine. In no sense can the waiver be considered, in my view, as a complete abrogation of the common-*223law doctrine. That, however, is the view this Court has mistakenly taken.
But, even if that view were correct,— that Act No 237 repealed or abolished the common-law doctrine of governmental immunity,—the subsequent repeal of Act No 237 by PA 1945, No 87, has the effect at common law of reinstating the common-law doctrine in the absence of legislative mandate to the contrary; For recent application of this common-law rule, see State v. General Daniel Morgan Post No 548, VFW, 144 W Va 137 (107 SE2d 353). See, also, Chism v. Phelps, 228 Ark 936 (311 SW2d 297, 77 ALR2d 329), where the common-law rule is recognized.
The same rule at common law applied to revive statutes repealed by acts which, in turn, were later repealed. Bender v. United States (CCA 3), 93 F2d 814. In this State, however, the common-law rule.as it applied to statutory law has been changed. CL 1948, § 8.4 (Stat Ann 1961 Rev § 2.213) provides:
“Whenever a statute, or any part thereof, shall be repealed by a subsequent statute, such statute, or any part thereof, so repealed, shall not be revived by the repeal of such subsequent repealing statute.”
But no change was made in the rule as it applied to legislative abrogation of the common law. Hence, even if we assume that the common-law doctrine of governmental immunity was repealed by Act No 237, under the common law it was revived (as a common-law doctrine) by the subsequent repeal of Act No 237.
I conclude from all of the foregoing that we judicial descendants of the creators of the governmental-immunity doctrine have now, and had when we decided Williams v. City of Detroit, supra, the power and the duty to relieve its judge-made injustice. This power and this duty we share equally with the *224legislature (Schedule, § 1, Const of 1908) and neither should be abdicated.
Some of the members of this Court sought to exercise that power and perform that duty in Williams. See Mr. Justice Edwards’ opinion at pp 250-270. Mr. Justice Black’s opinion in that case, pp 270-290, emphasized that those of us who signed Justice Edwards’ opinion (Mr. Justice Kavanagh and I are the only ones remaining on this Court who so signed) were dealing with the doctrine of governmental immunity, and not just municipal immunity. There was no suggestion in any of the opinions in that case that the doctrine as it affects the State had become a creature of the legislature and, thereby, immune from the judicial internment Justice Kavanagh and I joined Justice Edwards and Justice Talbot Smith to give it.
The suggestion was made first in McDowell v. State Highway Commissioner, supra, the majority opinion in which did more than just belatedly proclaim our disability of self-correction of this doctrinal evil. In that majority opinion Justice Black was joined by 4 other members of this Court (including Justice Kavanagh) in limiting the Williams decision to abrogation of municipal immunity only. By that opinion, and by the other opinions in this case, the doctrine of governmental immunity as it affects the State, its departments, commissions, boards, institutions, and agencies, has been granted by this Court a renewed, and judicially impregnable, lease on its destructive life.
The decision in McDoivell, representing as it does a retreat by at least 1 member of this Court from the position manfully stated in Williams, foretold the result in'these cases of Sayers and foredooms future plaintiffs crushed by the tortious arms of the State who seek relief from this reconstituted' Court.' Judicial reality, measured by the 5-vote majority in *225McDowell, renders futile further exposition- of the unanswered and unanswerable views expressed in Williams regarding our power and our duty to abrogate the doctrine of governmental immunity.
For the foregoing reasons I cannot subscribe to, or-share responsibility for, the views expressed by my writing colleagues,
Otis M. Smith and Adams, JJ., took no part in the decision of this case.

 See Williams v. City of Detroit, 364 Mich 231, 250-270.

 Id., p 273. The expression is another’s.

 Id., p 275.

 McDowell v. State Highway Commissioner, supra, p 271.