Court Opinion

ID: 9694918
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:00:33.575801+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:06.439389
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(dissenting). The plaintiffs, Downriver *671Plaza Group and Lewis George, property owners in the City of Southgate, commenced this action against the city seeking a refund of user charges levied for the operation and maintenance of the Southgate-Wyandotte drainage district, an "intra-county” drain.
The city contends that § 490 of the Drain Code1 authorizes the levy of the user charges. Section 490 provides for levying of "service charges to be paid by owners of land directly or indirectly connected” with an intracounty drain. Plaintiffs challenge the validity of the levy on a number of grounds.2 Because I conclude that § 490 does not authorize levying of the service charges, I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals, which ruled in part for the plaintiffs,3 and would order a refund to the plaintiffs.
i
Section 490 is found in chapter 20 (intracounty drains) of the Drain Code.4 Section 490 provides for levying of special assessments against land especially benefited by the construction of an intra-county drain, and for levying of service charges, in place of or in addition to special assessments, to be paid by owners of land directly or indirectly connected to the drain.
A
Intracounty drains may be located, established and constructed when "necessary for the public *672health”5 on the petition of "2 or more public corporations which will be subject to assessments to pay the cost” thereof.6 A county drainage board assesses the public corporations for the costs of construction and for operation and maintenance.7
When first enacted, the Drain Code did not provide for levying of either special assessments or service charges, and, thus, all costs respecting intracounty drains were then funded through ad valorem or other taxation.
The Drain Code was amended by 1957 PA 38 to add §490, which authorizes a public corporation, such as the City of Southgate, assessed under chapter 20 for an intracounty drain, to levy special assessments against "especially benefited lands, provided such special assessment method of financing is not inconsistent with local financing policy as to similar drains and sewers.” It was further provided that in lieu of levying special assessments, a public corporation "may exact connection charges to be paid by owners of land directly or indirectly connected with the drain project.” (Emphasis added.)
Section 490 was amended by 1965 PA 253 to provide that in "lieu of or in addition to levying special assessments, the public corporation under the same conditions and for the same purpose may exact connection, readiness to serve, availability or service charges to be paid by owners of land directly or indirectly connected with the drain project, or any combination thereof.” (Emphasis added.)
B
It appears that a federal grant of over forty *673million dollars was provided in 1975 and subsequent years to construct this intracounty drain. In 1976, Southgate levied an ad valorem tax to provide funds therefor. Because, upon completion of the drain in 1980, there were excess funds, it was not until 1988, some seven or eight years after completion of the drain, that Southgate received its first bill from the drainage district for operation and maintenance costs.
The federal statute, pursuant to which the funds were provided, required recipients to adopt "a system of charges,”8 and, in this connection, the Southgate City Council, in 1975, resolved to implement "a system of User Charges,” but nothing further was done to actually levy user charges until after the receipt in 1988 of the first bill for operation and maintenance costs.
c
In 1980, the same year construction of the drain was completed, § 489a9 was added to the Drain Code and § 490 was amended by 1979 PA 135, effective March 27, 1980. As amended, the authority of a public corporation, assessed by a drainage district, to levy special assessments and service charges, was subjected to the requirements of § 489a.10 The pertinent language of § 490, relied on by the city as the authority for levying the service charges in issue, now reads:
This section shall not be construed to prevent *674the assessment of public corporations at large under this chapter. In place of or in addition to levying special assessments, the public corporation, under the same conditions and for the same purpose, may exact connection, readiness to serve, availability, or service charges to be paid by owners of land directly or indirectly connected with the drain project, or a combination of projects, subject to section 489a. [MCL 280.490(4); MSA 11.1490(4). Emphasis added.]
Section 489a provides that if a public corporation determines that a part of the land will be especially benefited by a "proposed drain project so that a special assessment, fee, or charge may be levied” under § 490, the city shall, before petitioning for an intracounty drain, forward to each person owning land in the drainage district, a general description of the proposed drain project, the expected benefits of the project, notice that the project is to be fully or partly financed by special assessment against property owners within the district, and a statement that alternative plans of financing the proposed project will be considered at a meeting of the governing body of the public corporation.
Section 489a further provides that before actually filing a petition to constitute a drainage district, the legislative body may decide to proceed with the project and levy a special assessment, fee, or charge, or to proceed without levying a special assessment, fee, or charge, or to reject or withdraw from the proposed drain project. Persons aggrieved may appeal by instituting an action in the circuit court.11
ii
The majority holds that plaintiffs’ reliance on *675§ 489a is improper because the construction of the drain was completed before § 489a became effective. The majority concludes that the "Legislature intended that § 489a would have only prospective effect”:
Consequently, it would not have been possible for Southgate to ever have complied with § 489a’s requirements. Clearly, the Legislature intended that §489a would have only prospective effect. Thus, we agree with the trial judge’s conclusion that 489a is "without meaning in this case.” Further, we conclude that Southgate had valid authority to levy user fees under the appropriate Drain Code sections.[12]
The majority ignores plaintiffs’ argument that, in the absence of a saving clause, an act amending a specific section of a former act strikes the former section from the law, obliterating it entirely and substituting the new section in its place.13 One of this Court’s recent pronouncements is Ballog v Knight Newspapers, Inc, 381 Mich 527; 164 NW2d 19 (1969), in which this Court, reversing a decision of the Court of Appeals, held that an amendment of a provision of the Revised Judicature Act concerning interest on a judgment should be given retrospective effect to all actions accrued, pending, and future. As set forth in the headnotes, this Court ruled:
An amendatory act has a repealing force, by the mechanics of legislation, different from that of an independent statute, repugnancy not being an es*676sential element of the implied repeal of specifically amended sections.

The original or older form of a section of a statute ceases to exist upon amendment and the section, as amended, supersedes it and becomes a part of the statute for all intents and purposes as if the amendment had always been there.

The effect of an amendment to a specific section of an act is to strike the old section from the law, in the absence of a saving clause, obliterate it entirely, and substitute the new section in its place, and while provisions carried over are deemed continued rather than repealed and enacted anew, they have their force from the new act and not the old. [Id., pp 527-528. Emphasis added.]
Similarly see the following decisions of this Court: Kalamazoo City Ed Ass’n v Kalamazoo Public Schools, 406 Mich 579; 281 NW2d 454 (1979), Lahti v Fosterling, 357 Mich 578; 99 NW2d 490 (1959), Rookledge v Garwood, 340 Mich 444; 65 NW2d 785 (1954), Detroit Club v State of Michigan, 309 Mich 721; 16 NW2d 136 (1944), and People v Lowell, 250 Mich 349; 230 NW 202 (1930), and the following decisions of the Court of Appeals: Morgan v Taylor School Dist, 187 Mich App 5; 466 NW2d 322 (1991), Priest v Canada Life Assurance Co, 179 Mich App 731; 446 NW2d 352 (1989), and Avon Twp v State Boundary Comm, 96 Mich App 736; 293 NW2d 691 (1980).
I would hold, on the authority of the cited decisions of this Court, that in 1988, when the city first attempted to levy a service charge respecting this intracounty drain, its power to do so under § 490 was, as set forth in 1979 PA 135, effective March, 1980, "subject to section 489a.” See part i(c) for text of pertinent language of § 490.
*677Ill
The majority has not justified its assumption that "the Legislature intended that §489a would have only prospective effect.” Ante, p 663. The majority so assumes simply because it would not have been possible for Southgate to have complied with § 489a under the circumstance that the drain had been completed before March, 1980, when § 489a and the amendment of § 490, subjecting the authority set forth in § 490 to § 489a, became effective.
The 1979 amendment, adding §489a and subjecting the authority set forth in § 490 to § 489a, is remedial legislation. As set forth in the House Legislative Analysis, HB 4102, May 14, 1979, intra- and intercounty drains "are necessary for the public health,” and such "drain projects generally benefit an entire municipality and are financed through ad valorem assessments at large.”
The Legislative Analysis continues that although the Drain Code requires that a hearing be held after a petition for a drain project has been filed, "landowners who are specially assessed claim that they often don’t find out about the hearing and don’t know they are being assessed until they get their tax bills.” And that the "bill would allow property owners to voice their concerns in the early planning stages of a drain project. Many landowners feel that their objections and comments will be considered more seriously before a petition for a drain project is filed and money is spent for engineering plans.” The Department of Agriculture suggested that "public health is the obligation of the municipalities and should , not be assessed to the individual landowners.” Id.
Having in mind the evil at which the 1979 amendment was aimed — the levying of special *678assessments or service or other charges against individual landowners for a community public health project, generally financed through ad valo-rem assessments at large, without providing individual landowners an opportunity to be heard before the community decides to finance the project by levying special assessments or service or other charges — there is no more reason to suppose that the Legislature intended prospective effect than retrospective effect.
A decision of this Court that the 1979 amendment has retrospective effect, with the result that the cost of annual maintenance and operation of this public health project will be paid by ad valo-rem and other taxation of the entire community, is no more unreasonable or unfair to the forty percent who do not live in the drainage district than special assessment, without an opportunity to be heard before a city decides to specially assess or surcharge, is to the sixty percent who own property in the drainage district. Good arguments can be made on both sides of the question.
I would adhere to the rule of construction set forth in Ballog and the other cited cases, and hold that it is immaterial that the city was unable, in 1988, to comply with the prerequisites set forth in § 489a to the exercise of the power to establish service charges set forth in § 490. The power to establish service charges, except subject to the strictures set forth in § 489a, ceased to exist in March, 1980, when former §490 was "obliterated in its entirety,”14 and the new language took its place.

 MCL 280.490; MSA 11.1490.

 The disposition that I would order makes it unnecessary to address other arguments and claims advanced by the plaintiffs.

 195 Mich App 192; 489 NW2d 178 (1992).

 Chapter 21 (MCL 280.511 et seq.; MSA 11.1511 et seq.) concerns intercounty drains and contains similar language. Sections 538a (MCL 280.538a; MSA 11.1538[1]) and 539 (MCL 280.539; MSA 11.1539) correspond to § 489a and § 490.

 MCL 280.462; MSA 11.1462.

 MCL 280.463; MSA 11.1463.

 MCL 280.473 et seq.; MSA 11.1473 et seq.

 33 USC 1284.

 MCL 280.489a; MSA 11.1489(1).

 There are six references to § 489a in the current version of § 490. The Legislature has made it abundantly clear that the authority granted by § 490 is circumscribed by the provisions of § 489a.

 MCL 280.489a; MSA 11.1489(1).

 Ante, p 663.

 The plaintiffs cite Priest v Canada Life Assurance Co, 179 Mich App 731, 736-737; 446 NW2d 352 (1989), quoting from Lahti v Fosterling, 357 Mich 578, 588-589; 99 NW2d 490 (1959), and People v Lowell, 250 Mich 349, 354-356; 230 NW 202 (1930).

 See headnote to Ballog quoted in part n.