Court Opinion

ID: 9851148
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:08:05.2272+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:49.859541
License: Public Domain

Beasley, P. J.
(concurring in part; dissenting in part). I concur in the result reached by the majority.
It was evident to the petitioning attorneys (referred to in the majority opinion as G & K) that appellant’s attorneys (referred to in the majority opinion as JSRG & H) were acting on behalf of their clients, defendant and third-party plaintiffs. Any witness fees and costs should have been assessed against defendant and third-party plaintiffs. It was error to charge witness fees against the attorneys, JSRG & H.1
Consequently, under the circumstances of this case, I would not hold the attorneys liable for *357additional witness fees ordered under the "loss of working time” provision of § 2552 of the Revised Judicature Act.2
Where, as here, the appellee attorneys, G & K, had been relieved by order of the court of their responsibility to continue to represent their clients, one bankrupt and the other departed outside of the United States, the trial judge was correct in finding § 2552(2), set forth as follows, inapplicable in this case:
"(2) No attorney or counsel in any cause in which he may be interested as attorney or counsel, shall be allowed any fee for attending as a witness in such case.”3
G & K were not precluded from seeking witness fees.
Last, I am unable to subscribe to some of the dicta in the majority opinion referred to as "guidelines”. I would believe that in this case 16 hours of discovery deposition was an abuse of the discovery procedure, rather than to emphasize what the majority describe as the public obligation to give testimony. After all, this is a civil suit and the parties were not yet even concerned with trial, merely pretrial preparation. In weighing competing societal interests, I would incline to require fair and adequate compensation for those witnesses taken from their preferred pursuits at the pleasure of litigants and lawyers engaged in civil litigation.

 Preston v Preston, 1 Doug (Mich) 292 (1844), cited in 15 ALR3d 531, 536.

 MCLA 600.2552; MSA 27A.2552:
"Sec. 2552.
(1) Witnesses shall receive for attending in any suit or proceeding pending in a court of record, $12.00 for each day and $6.00 for each half day, or a witness may be paid for his loss of working time, but not more than $15.00 for each day shall be taxable as costs as his witness fee. * * *

 MCLA 600.2552(2); MSA 27A.2552(2).