Court Opinion

ID: 9697051
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:04:42.143313+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:28.861559
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(concurring). I concur in affirmance.
It is true that the ease should have been dismissed, under the statute (CL 1948, § 618.3 [Stat Ann § 27.983]), no later than expiration of another term after the “must be tried this year” notation was made by the circuit judge. But that omission did not then or thereafter annul the concededly existent jurisdiction over parties and subject matter. As Mr. Justice Wiest piquantly observed of another like statute (a directive by the legislature that the court do or decide within a certain specified time):
“The statute [CL 1915, § 12585 (CL 1948, § 618.13 [Stat Ann §27.993])] expresses a commendable ideal and spends its whole force in the utterance thereof. It does not punish litigants for delay excusable or inexcusable by the judge and does not and could not provide departure of judicial power from the judge. It is a legislative intimation of a promptness most desirable, entitled to respect as such, but in no sense a mandate regulating rights and remedies.” (Stepanian v. Moskovitz, 232 Mich 630, 639.)
Justice Wiest gave as his reason that “spurs can only be applied by a rider and the legislature does not occupy the judicial saddle.” I concur, too, with that specially worthy epigram.
O’Hara, J., took no part in the decision of this case.