Court Opinion

ID: 9728555
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 14:11:00.182137+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:49.659470
License: Public Domain

R. M. Maher, P.J.
(dissenting). I must dissent from the majority’s opinion which finds the three-*707year statute of limitation in MCL 600.5805(7); MSA 27A.5805(7)1 applicable to this case.
Generally, statutes of limitations are considered to be procedural rather than substantive. Buscaino v Rhodes, 385 Mich 474, 480; 189 NW2d 202 (1971). Statutes of limitations are statutes of repose, i.e., their purpose is to guard against stale claims, where the loss of evidence or witnesses due to death or lapse of time may render the case impossible of proof. Bigelow v Walraven, 392 Mich 566, 570; 221 NW2d 328 (1974), Buscaino v Rhodes, supra.
MCL 600.5805; MSA 27A.5805 provides the limitations periods for various injuries to persons or property. Included in this statute are the personal torts of assault, battery, and false imprisonment; malicious prosecution; malpractice; misconduct of sheriffs; negligence of a constable; libel or slander; and all other injuries "to persons and property”.2 The limitation periods range from one to three years. The relatively short limitation period can readily be explained by the personal nature of these torts. Personal knowledge and recollection by witnesses is crucial to show an assault, battery, libel, etc., since usually their effect is not permanent.
The three-year limitation period, when applied to an "injury to property”, has usually been applied to the loss of personal property, for example, cows which were electrocuted by power lines, State Mutual Cyclone Ins Co v O & A Electric Cooperative, 381 Mich 318; 161 NW2d 573 (1968); pigs that *708became ill and also began to eat each other, Nelson v Michigan Bean Co, 22 Mich App 540; 177 NW2d 655 (1970); defective floor tiles, Southgate Community School Dist v West Side Construction Co, 399 Mich 72; 247 NW2d 884 (1976). Other actions which were appropriately brought under MCL 600.5805(7) had to do with interference in the use or value of real property, e.g., railroad tracks which prevented egress or ingress from one direction, Green v Grand Trunk Western R Co, 287 Mich 29; 282 NW 890 (1938); erection of a viaduct in front of the plaintiffs property, Kipp v State Highway Comm’r, 286 Mich 202; 281 NW 592 (1938).
In the instant case, we are not dealing with the loss of personal property, nor are we dealing with the diminution in value or interference with use or enjoyment of real property. We have before us a group of persons whose claim is that the government’s actions resulted in the total loss of their real property, a "taking” without the payment of compensation, which is the essence of an inverse condemnation proceeding. Tamulion v State Waterways Comm, 50 Mich App 60, 66; 212 NW2d 828 (1973).
The law jealously guards against interference with the rights of ownership. The Michigan Constitution, 1963, art 10, § 2 requires the government to condemn property only after the proper procedures have been followed and "just compensation” has been paid to the owner. If the government has not followed the prescribed procedures, and has taken private property for a public use without paying any compensation whatsoever, it is more closely analogous to a situation where the rightful owner is dispossessed by adverse possession, which is governed by a 15-year statute under MCL 600.5801(4); MSA 27A.5801(4).
*709Indeed, the prescriptive period of adverse possession has been applied to inverse condemnation cases in other jurisdictions. In Brazos River Authority v City of Graham, 163 Tex 167; 354 SW2d 99 (1961), the Texas Supreme Court said, 163 Tex 167, 182-183; 354 SW2d 99, 109-110:
"We might add, however, that insofar as the sewage disposal plant is concerned, we have a taking by inverse condemnation and the great weight of American authority supports the position that, absent a particular statute covering the situation, the land limitation rather than the general limitation statutes apply to such inverse condemnation proceedings. Ackerman v Port of Seattle, 55 Wash 2d 400, 348 P2d 664 [77 ALR2d 1344]; Aylmore v City of Seattle, 100 Wash 515, 171 P 659 [LRA 1918E, 127]; Oklahoma City v Wells, 185 Okl 369, 91 P2d 1077 [123 ALR 662]; cases collected in Annot, 123 ALR 676; 18 Am Jur, Eminent Domain, § 394. The Texas rule is in accord. In case of a 'taking’ of property, the City’s right thereto would not be barred if ever until the expiration of the ten year period necessary to acquire lands by adverse possession under Art 5510, Vernon’s Ann Tex Stats. Tarrant County Water Control and Improvement Dist No 1 v Fowler, 175 SW2d 694, Texas Civ App, wr ref w.o.m., [142 Tex 375,] 179 SW2d 250. See also, Tarrant County Water Control and Improvement Dist No 1 v Reid, [Tex Civ App,] 203 SW2d 290, wr ref n.r.e.”
See also, Shepherd v City of Austin, 543 SW2d 185, 187 (Tex Civ App, 1976).
In Frustuck v City of Fairfax, 212 Cal App 2d 345, 374; 28 Cal Rptr 357, 375 (1963), the California Appellate Court decided that the three-year limitation period for injury to real property which was applicable to trespass cases should not apply to inverse condemnation proceedings, reasoning as follows:
*710"* * * We reason that acts constituting inverse condemnation amount to more than those of simple trespass. The former involve the taking or damaging of real property for a public use. When an act of trespass amounts to a taking or damaging for a public use it is more than a mere trespass on an interest in land, but it takes from the owner of the land something necessary and essential to the use and enjoyment of the property and thus results in the taking away of a valuable property right. To put the matter at rest, we are satisfied that section 338, subdivision 2, applies to acts of trespass or injury to property which do not involve the taking or damaging of private property for a public use pursuant to article 1, section 14 of the California Constitution.”
Use of the 15-year period in inverse condemnation proceedings involving loss of property would protect the interest of the landowner without working an injustice on the governmental body. This is because the nature of the proof differs from the usual trespass or tort injury. In an inverse condemnation situation, there is usually a well-documented change in the property itself over a prolonged period. In any case, since the plaintiffs bear the burden of proof in inverse condemnation proceedings,3 any loss of evidence or witnesses would be a greater detriment to them than to the governmental defendant.
I would reverse.

I note that the statute was amended in 1978, and the relevant portion, MCL 600.5805(8), provides:
"(8) The period of limitations is 3 years after the time of the death or injury for all other actions to recover damages for the death of a person, or for injury to a person or property.”

 MCL 600.5805(l)-(7); MSA 27A.5805(l)-(7).

 Muskegon v DeVries, 59 Mich App 415; 229 NW2d 479 (1975).