Court Opinion

ID: 9532813
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:25:01.577295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:50.773850
License: Public Domain

*298Black, J.
(concurring). Had I been eligible to participate in the decision of Parker v. Port Huron Hospital, 361 Mich 1, and had the majority decision been one to overrule prospectively per affirmance of the supreme court of Montana by Great Northern R. Co. v. Sunburst Oil & Refining Co., 287 US 358 (53 S Ct 145, 77 L ed 360, 85 ALR 254), I would have signed the prevailing opinion as written by Mr. Justice Kavanagh. Which is to say that I agree fully with his opinion save only that part which assigns Sunburst as authorizing judgments in favor of Mr. Parker and Mrs. Parker’s administrator.
While the point is academic now, it would seem that affirmance in Parker might well have been planted on the disclosed fact of insurance and resultant waiver of immunity. See to the point Christie v. Board of Regents of University of Michigan, 364 Mich 202, and Williams v. City of Detroit, 364 Mich 231. To which I would add that private and nonprofit hospitals may lawfully protect themselves by such insurance. That they may or do differ in such regard, from municipal corporations, is pointed up in Williams.
With respect to the question raised by plaintiffs Browning, also by parties amicus, that Parker effects an invidious discrimination against them, I hold with Chief Justice Dethmers that Parker, for want of a majority of the membership of the Court, decided Parker only. On that ground I find that Parker lays down no rule upon which it may be said that an actionable infringement of State and Federal guaranties of equal protection was done or accomplished by Parker.
I vote to affirm.