Court Opinion

ID: 9849014
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:32:45.631212+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:18:57.232862
License: Public Domain

Brickley, J.
(dissenting). In this case the majority construes 1935 PA 253 so that it is applicable to all penal institutions in Michigan. Because I believe the statute is clear on its face, and needs no interpretation, I respectfully dissent. When the Legislature is as clear and specific as it was in this instance, we need not, and indeed should not, speculate on legislative intent. There is here absolutely no ambiguity. MCL 800.402; MSA 28.1702 states in part:
The warden of the state prison at Jackson, the branch of the state prison at Marquette, and the house of correction and reformatory at Ionia, shall forward to the auditor general....
MCL 800.403; MSA 28.1703 states:
The auditor general shall investigate or cause to be investigated all such reports furnished by said wardens for the purpose of securing reimbursement for the expense of the state of Michigan for the care, custody and control of said prisoners. [Emphasis added.]
MCL 800.404; MSA 28.1704 states in part:
Whenever it shall be found that any person has been admitted to any of the aforesaid state penal institutions, as a prisoner, the auditor general, or the prosecuting attorney of the county from which said person was so sentenced, shall, if such person or prisoner be possessed of any estate, or shall thereafter while he shall remain in such institution .... [Emphasis added.]
*148The Legislature could not have more clearly designated the act to apply to the prisoners of the "aforesaid state penal institutions.”
Had the Legislature intended the act to apply to all state penal institutions, it could easily have so provided. Instead, the statute is expressly limited by its own terms to only three of the state’s prisons. Surely the Legislature must have been aware at the time of drafting that the number of state prisons would grow with time, but it did not provide for this eventuality in the statute. I do not believe that it is a judicial function to amend the statute. Indeed, 1935 PA 253 remained unchanged for virtually half a century until the Court of Appeals ruled it unconstitutionál. I agree with that Court that
[i]f the Legislature intended for the Prison Reimbursement Act to cover new penal institutions, it could have used a general definition of "state penal institution” as found in the reimbursement to counties for certain expenses act which was later enacted. MCL 800.451; MSA 28.1714(1).3
Accordingly, I would refrain from accepting the appellant’s invitation to rewrite the act for the Legislature so that it applies to all penal institutions. When we succumb to that temptation, it helps to form bad judicial habits. I see no compelling circumstances here that should take this case outside the well-settled rule that "[i]f the language employed in a statute is plain, certain and unambiguous, a bare reading suffices and no interpretation is necessary.” Dussia v Monroe Co Employees *149Retirement System, 386 Mich 244, 248; 191 NW2d 307 (1971).
Also, I do not believe, as the appellant contends, that the act can be salvaged by severing the unconstitutional portions. In effect, the severing and rewording proposed would be a redrafting of the statute. Moreover, the different sections of 1935 PA 253 appear interrelated and interdependent. For example, constitutional deficiencies would still exist if we were to allow § 4a to apply to all penal institutions while limiting § 4. Section 4 gives a prisoner an opportunity to have a guardian appointed and other important procedural rights not found in § 4a. This would allow similarly situated prisoners to be treated differently with no rational basis for doing so.
The Attorney General contends that § 4a is "self-executing” and independent of the rest of the act and that the complaint in this case stated a valid claim under § 4a. I do not agree that a claim has been stated under § 4a. The amended complaint stated in part:
5. That Plaintiff has a good reason to believe and does believe that Defendant, Hardy Wilson, has an estate which should be subject to the payment to the State of the expenses paid by the State on behalf of the Defendant as a resident at a State penal institution in accordance with the provisions of MCL 800.401 et seq.; MSA 28.1701 et seq.
It is clear that the Attorney General was not proceeding under § 4a alone.
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Ryan and Riley, JJ., concurred with Brickley, J.

 The reimbursement to counties for certain expenses act became effective on February 12, 1978, approximately 43 years after the enactment of the Prison Reimbursement Act.