Court Opinion

ID: 9736060
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:42:05.617145+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:03.794430
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(concurring in reversal). At this yet “summary” stage of a five-year old chancery case, I do not care to commit my signature beyond holding that the defendant has failed to sustain the first requisite of its motion to dismiss (filed under former Court Rule No 18, § 1 [e] [1945]). That requisite was and yet remains proof that the present plaintiffs “are members of the class represented by the plaintiffs therein” (referring to Cadman) and that “The plaintiffs herein, having been members of the class represented in the Federal district court action, are concluded by the adjudications made therein” (referring to Burlington)1
Since it is not claimed that the present parties plaintiff were parties in the ordinary sense to either of the two mentioned prior actions, defendant’s said motion to dismiss required for support something more than a pure conclusion of deposed fact and law; such conclusion being that the present plaintiffs *271were represented by actual parties to such prior actions and became legally bound in that manner to whatever adjudications as were made therein.
Just why detailed proof, of the alleged fact of representation of these plaintiffs by others in Cad-man and Burlington, was not offered or supplied below is not explained. The want of such proof calls properly for a negative answer to defendant’s counterstated first question and for the withholding of answer to its second question. The two questions appear in the margin.2
This ease is another example of that imprudent practice which seems to burgeon evermore in our metropolitan trial courts, that is, the practice of summary riddance of cases on summary motion as a means of keeping abreast — at very least — of a backlog that seems to grow faster as dispositions are made. Only last year (R.R. Improvement Ass’n v. Thomas, 374 Mich 175, 187) this Court found it necessary to advise that, “our metropolitan circuits being burdened as they are, it is better to let the work of the circuit get farther and farther behind than to crank a judicial meatgrinder the unjust output of which is simply a great number of ‘cases disposed of’.” Such advices were given after the Court had noted again the exasperation as well as disservice which stems usually from the cursory disposition of chancery cases without the previous taking of such proof as may fairly be indicated for the de novo (should there be an appeal) determination of all pleaded issues (pp 177, 178):
*272“On too many occasions in recent years this Court has found it necessary to remand equity cases for a reason known specially to equity’s jurisdiction. See Sternberg v. Baxter, 373 Mich 8, 18; Falkner v. Brookfield, 368 Mich 17, 25; Kent v. Bell, 368 Mick 443, 451; Kenney v. Village of Novi, 367 Mick 75, 76, 77, and Crocker v. Crocker, 362 Mick 6, 8, all of wkick quote or cite Culy v. Upham, 135 Mich 131 (106 Am St Rep 388). In Culy v. Upham tkis regularly quoted passage appears (p 135) :
“ ‘We do not wish, by our silence, to seem to approve tke procedure adopted in tkis case. If we had disagreed with tke trial judge on the legal proposition discussed in tkis opinion, we could not kave made a final disposition of tke case. We skould kave been forced to remand tke record for another hearing in tke court below. As a general rule, suits at chancery skould be so tried in the lower court that, when they are appealed, tkis Court may finally dispose of the issue raised by tke pleadings.’ ”
Tke quoted rule in mind, it is appropriate to say that, defendant’s deficient motion to dismiss and orders upholding same having intervened, tke very purposes touted in behalf of summary justice kave been defeated. What skould kave been done in recent years, and must yet be done, has not even commenced. It would seem, then, that tkis Court might serve tke administration of justice better by advising tke trial bench anew that equity cases are to be handled pertinently as equity cases, just as was recommended sixty odd years ago when Culy v. Upham was handed down; also that summary disposition of equity cases on technical grounds should be discouraged in favor of enough at least by way of formal hearing as will permit full play of equity’s intended jurisdiction. Had tkis case come to due hearing in accordance with our then recently reaffirmed suggestion (per curiam, Crocker, supra), it *273would in all probability have matured by this time to decretal final judgment.
I would reverse and remand with direction that an order enter in circuit denying defendant’s said motion. Plaintiffs should have costs of both appellate courts.

 For all of the official citations of Cadman and Burlington, see Justice Smith’s opinion, ante at page 241,

“(1) Were the plaintiff’s in this action members of the classes represented by the class plaintiffs in the two prior actions concerning the nnion of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church ?”
“(2) Assuming that the plaintiffs herein were members of such classes, are they now prevented from maintaining this action, as the lower courts held, on principles of res judicata and estoppel by judgment by reason of the judgments in the prior actions?”