Court Opinion

ID: 9517283
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:12:44.2892+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:42:39.810265
License: Public Domain

E. W. Brown, J.,
(dissenting). Act 170 of Public Acts of 1964, MCLA § 691.1401 et seq. (Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 3.996 [101] et seq.), which became effective on July 1, 1965, is entitled:
“An act to make uniform the liability of municipal corporations, * * * when engaged in a governmental function, for injuries to property and persons caused by negligence; to define and limit the liability.”
Section 2 of this Act reiterates the previous statutory duty of governmental agencies “to keep any highway under its jurisdiction in reasonable repair, and in condition reasonably safe and fit for travel”. It then goes on to provide:
“The duty of the state and the county road commissions to repair and maintain highways and the liability therefor, shall extend only to the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel and shall not include sidewalks, crosswalks or any other installation outside of the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The sole issue for review is whether defendant’s liability under section 2, supra, extends to traffic control devices. The trial court, in granting defendant’s motion for summary judgment, equated the meaning of “the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel” with the “traveled portion” and held that the stop sign was outside of the traveled portion of the highway. I agree.
The statutory law and its interpretation prior to the 1964 act, MCLA § 691.1401 et seq. (Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 3.996[101] et seq.), clearly upheld plaintiff’s position and the conclusion reached by the *61majority in the instant case. However, Mullins v. Wayne County (1969), 16 Mich App 365, and its companion case, Kuchta v. St. Clair Board of County Road Commissioners (1969), 16 Mich App 390, were decided under prior legislation. The same is true of O’Hare v. City of Detroit (1960), 362 Mich 19, which held that the failure of a city to maintain a stop sign is a failure to maintain public highways and streets in reasonable repair. Our question, therefore, concerns the effect of the 1964 statute on restricting the scope of prior precedent — a question not heretofore answered by the appellate courts of this State. That statute was “an attempt to make uniform the liability of governmental agencies when engaged in governmental functions”. Maki v. City of East Tawas (1969), 18 Mich App 109, 122.
The effect of this new legislation was discussed by Circuit Judge Victor J. Baum, of the Wayne County bench, in an article appearing in the May, 1965, issue of the Michigan State Bar Journal, entitled “Governmental Immunity in Michigan — Some Recent Developments”. Judge Baum, no stranger to the law of governmental immunity (he was the trial judge in Williams v. City of Detroit (1961), 364 Mich 231), concluded at p 44:
“The new legislation does seven things:
“1. It restores governmental immunity from top to bottom. From the lowliest municipal corporation to the highest echelon of state government, all public agencies are immune while engaged in governmental functions, except in the following three areas.
“2. The statute excepts from its very broad restoration of immunity, three types of activities:
“(a) defective maintenance of roads,
“(b) negligent operation of motor vehicles,
“(c) defective maintenance of public buildings.” (Emphasis supplied.) *62Keeping in mind this broad restoration of immunity, let us consider the first exception — defective maintenance of roads — set forth in section 2 of the statute.
In the first place it must be remembered, as was noted in Goodrich v. County of Kalamazoo (1943), 304 Mich 442, 445, “that liability of defendant county for defects in a county road is a liability imposed only by statute. (1 Comp. Laws 1929, § 3996 [Stat. Ann. §9.121]). There was no common-law liability.”
“We have frequently held that the liability of municipalities [counties] for injuries upon highways is purely statutory, is in derogation of the common law, &nd cannot be enlarged by construction.” Brown v. Township of Byron (1915), 189 Mich 584, 587.
As noted, MCLA § 691.1402 (Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 3.996 [102]) restricts the duty of the state and county road commissions to “the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel and shall not include * * * any * * * installation outside of the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel.” (Emphasis supplied.) The Supreme Court in Goodrich, supra, in determining the scope of the duties of a road authority where a car struck a tree located about 30 inches from the pavement, defined improved portion at p 446 as being limited “to the traveled portion of the road and not to the entire width of the highway.” Goodrich, supra, cited Keyes v. Village of Marcellus (1883), 50 Mich 439, 441, in which it was stated:
“It is never excepted that travel will occupy all parts of such a highway, nor can there be any requirement that the public authorities shall prepare for it.”
*63Kurtz v. Morse Oil Co. (1932), 114 Conn 336, 341 (158 A 906) was cited with approval in Goodrich, supra, as defining the “traveled” or “improved portion” of the highway at pp 446, 447:
“ ‘As already indicated, we think the statute (Connecticut Gen. Stat. § 1639) permits and requires a construction that the traveled portion of the highway comprises only that portion intended for normal travel, excluding the dirt shoulders on either side.’ ”
The Court in Goodrich, supra, then defines the meaning of the term “improved portion of the highway” as follows at pp 447, 448:
“It is not within the statutory duty of the county to maintain shoulders of improved county highways so that such shoulders will be ‘reasonably safe and convenient for public travel’ in the same sense that the county is required to so maintain the paved or improved portion which is designed for ordinary or normal travel”.
The legislature in adopting or changing a statute is presumed to act with knowledge and regard of existing laws and decisions interpreting them. Department of Conservation v. Connor (1948), 321 Mich 648. As the trial court commented, whether the legislature acted wisely or not is not for the courts to say. The legislature by the adoption of MCLA § 691.1402 (Stat Ann 1969 Rev § 3.996[102]), explicitly limited the liability of state and county road authorities to the improved, traveled, or paved portion of the highway, whichever term one chooses to use, and traffic control devices are beyond that specific limit.
I would affirm the trial court.