Court Opinion

ID: 9742611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:16:48.244289+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:19:44.060093
License: Public Domain

Holbrook, P. J.
(dissenting). This writer must dissent. While this writer essentially agrees with my brother’s statement of the facts, save for what may have occurred after plaintiffs’ motion for early pretrial and trial was granted. There is no evidence in the record that a pretrial conference was held prior to November 23, 1970. Proceeding in pro per, the plaintiffs may very well have thought that the proceeding of November 23, 1970, was the pretrial conference. This is not an unwarranted conclusion, since pretrial conferences were mandatory under GCR 1963, 301 in 1970. In any case, from November 23, 1970 onward, what hap*514pened is unclear.1 There is evidence a trial without jury was held on that date. The docket entry for that date reads:
"Parties present. Court finds no cause for action. Order of dismissal to be filed, court sheet-Judge Neal Fitzgerald.”
Moreover, an order was entered by the trial judge which read:
"This matter having been tried and the court having considered the testimony, and the court having found in favor of the defendant, and this court being fully advised in the premises,
"It is hereby ordered and adjudged that judgment of no cause of action for the defendant be entered without costs.”
Furthermore, defendants state on appeal that at the outset of the November 23, 1970 proceedings, they made a motion for a directed verdict. Plaintiffs then were given an opportunity to respond, which they did by taking the stand and testifying. The plaintiffs having been given an opportunity to respond to defendants’ motion, the court ruled in favor of the defendants. The trial court has also characterized the motion as one for a directed verdict. One must conclude, therefore, that what happened November 23, 1970, was a trial without a jury, since directed verdicts are authorized only following the opening statements at trial of opposing counsel. GCR 1963, 515; 2 Honigman & Haw*515kins, Michigan Court Rules Annotated (2d ed), p 526.
In any case, the judgment of the trial court was appealed to this Court, and on January 10, 1972, the case was remanded by this Court to the Wayne County Circuit Court for a report on (1) why the appellants were denied a jury trial pursuant to their written demand and (2) whether the appellants were indigent at the time the jury fee would have been due. The trial court has reported back to us in part as follows:
"No one in this court was ever familiar with the fact that a jury had ever been demanded in this case until some days ago, when the file was searched and a demand for jury was discovered, which was not dated, and a complete perusal of the record taken at the time of the hearing has been gone over, and in no place in that record does it appear that these plaintiffs ever requested that they be granted a jury or informed the court that they had demanded a jury. When the court took the bench, the plaintiff immediately took the stand, and, with no requests of any kind, began her testimony. No mention was ever made of a demand for a jury at any time during her testimony. * * *
"These people were brought into this court within the past three days and all given a complete opportunity to testify to anything they wished. Their testimony was hardly sufficient to make any kind of a record because it did not consist of more than three or four questions. * * *
"As to the matter of indigency. In the first place, indigency in 1949 was not treated in the same manner as it has been in the past three or four years since the state got more liberal than usual with its money and saw to it that no one practically has to pay for any part of an appeal. Indigency in ’49, if this Court, to which I am addressing, will think back, they will remember that if you did not have any money, you did not have any attorney and no one was willing to furnish money to cover that situation and no allowances were made for *516the failure to pay the required fees merely because the litigant happened to be an indigent.
"It is the opinion of this court that these people did not have any money at that time, but, under the circumstances, the court had no obligation to furnish them any free services.”
Plaintiffs have now reasserted their objection that they were denied their right to a trial by jury.
While it may be true that the substance of this case is without merit, as the trial judge believes, that fact would not justify a denial of plaintiffs’ constitutional right to a jury trial unless the denial was made consistent with the proper procedural standards. The trial judge has stated that he had no knowledge of plaintiffs’ request for a jury trial and we have no reason to doubt him. However, the fact remains that there was a written demand for a jury trial filed in the record November 26, 1969. This satisfies but one-half of the requirements for a proper assertion of a right to a trial by jury. The other half consists of payment of the jury fee. MCLA 600.2537; MSA 27A.2537; GCR 1963, 508. Ordinarily, of course, if the jury fee is not paid the right to a jury trial is considered waived. GCR 1963, 508.4; Jinkner v Widmer, 3 Mich App 155; 141 NW2d 692 (1966). However, the trial judge on remand from this Court specifically found that plaintiffs were indigent. The question arises, therefore, whether it was proper to hold a trial without jury under these circumstances. It should be noted here that at the time of the trial GCR 1963, 120, providing for suspension of fees and costs by the court for indigent persons, was not yet in effect. There are no cases in this jurisdiction dealing with the right of an indigent litigant to a trial by jury where a jury trial was demanded but the fee not paid. In light of Boddie v *517Connecticut, 401 US 371, 379; 91 S Ct 780, 787; 28 L Ed 2d 113, 120 (1971), this issue bears serious examination. In holding that due process prohibited a state from denying, solely because of inability to pay, access to the courts to individuals who seek judicial dissolution of their marriage the Supreme Court of the United States declared:
"Our cases further establish that a statute or a rule may be held constitutionally invalid as applied when it operates to deprive an individual of a protected right although its general validity as a measure enacted in the legitimate exercise of state power is beyond question. Thus, in cases involving religious freedom, free speech or assembly, this Court has often held that a valid statute was unconstitutionally applied in particular circumstances because it interfered with an individual’s exercise of those rights.”
The principles upon which Boddie are founded require that civil indigents be afforded the same right to a trial by jury as those able to pay the jury fee. The philosophy behind this rule is probably best expressed in the words of Mr. Justice Black in Griffin v Illinois, 351 US 12, 19; 76 S Ct 585, 591; 100 L Ed 891, 899 (1956), wherein it was decided that persons convicted of a crime could not be denied full appellate review even if they were unable to pay for the trial transcript:
"Such a denial is a misfit in a country dedicated to affording equal justice to all and special privileges to none in the administration of its criminal law. There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has. Destitute defendants must be afforded as adequate appellate review as defendants who have money enough to buy transcripts.” (Emphasis supplied.)
This writer cannot see how the right to a trial by *518jury can remain an inviolate constitutional right if the successful assertion of that right can hinge on a person’s capability to pay jury fees. The Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses of the State and the Federal Constitutions could not countenance such a result. Boddie and Griffin, supra.
This writer votes to reverse and remand the case for further proceedings.

 The situation is unclear primarily because the record before us is meager at best. However, since the parties have stipulated that all the applicable facts are contained therein, we proceed on the basis of the record provided. It should be noted that there is no transcript of the proceedings that occurred on November 23, 1970, nor of any proceeding that prompted the trial judge’s report back to us after we first remanded this case.