Court Opinion

ID: 9686861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:09:39.505067+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:22.551801
License: Public Domain

*148Souris, J.
(dissenting). Forty years ago Mr. Justice Wiest, in Koeper v. Detroit Street Railway Commission, 222 Mich 464, 487, observed that veterans’ preference acts “have always been accorded tender consideration by the courts.” However appropriate such consideration may be in legislative halls and while we may take judicial notice of its exercise there, in the performance of our own judicial function when called upon to measure the continuing vitality of such an act by standards universally applicable, we should not let slip Justitia’s blindfold.
We have before us 2 allegedly inconsistent statutes. If indeed irreconcilably inconsistent, only the last enacted statute may apply in the circumstances of inconsistency, — by judicial implication of repeal of the first enacted statute absent legislative language of express repeal. In re Estate of Reynolds, 274 Mich 354, 360; Jackson v. Michigan Corrections Commission, 313 Mich 352, 356; and Washtenaw County Road Commissioners v. Public Service Commission, 349 Mich 663.
I cannot read PA 1897, No 205,1 the veterans’ preference act, and PA 1935, No 78,2 the civil service act currently applicable to certain municipal fire and police departments, as does Mr. Justice Dethmers. Their objectives and their express provisions are, in my view, in irreconcilable conflict and, therefore, I would hold that in those cities, villages, and municipalities whose electors have adopted by referendum the act of 1935, as its section 17a3 **provides, the earlier enacted veterans’ preference act no longer is applicable. Absent a record of legislative debate or other aid in determining what was intended by the *149legislature in 1935, we are limited to consideration of the statutory language alone. That language falls far short of expressing to me any legislative intent from which we can make of the act of 1935 something less than the comprehensive merit system it purports to be for those governmental units which have elected to adopt its provisions.
Before passage of the act of 1935, and its amendment by PA 1945, No 287, firemen and policemen of such governmental units were appointed, employed, removed, and transferred, as in every other department of the State, counties, and other municipal corporations, subject to the preferences granted veterans by PA 1897, No 205. Honorably discharged veterans were required by the first section of that act to be “preferred for appointment and employment.” By the second section of that act they were granted additional preferential benefits not accorded nonveteran employees by legislative prohibition against their removal, suspension, or transfer except for “official misconduct, habitual, serious or wilful neglect in the performance of duty, extortion, conviction of intoxication, conviction of felony, or incompetency,” after due notice and a full hearing before designated elected officials of the governing unit or, if removed, suspended, or transferred prior to such notice and hearing, such hearing had to be held within 30 days of the aggrieved veteran’s protest against such action.
By enactment of the 1935 civil service act, the legislature authorized procedures whereby any city, village, or municipality employing full-time fire or police departments, whose electors so desired, could improve and maintain a high quality of performance in such publicly vital departments by requiring appointments of applicants and promotions of members to be made solely by reference to their relative" or comparative merit and fitness as determined by *150■uniform examinations. Sections 11 and 12 of the act of 1935 (CLS 1956, §§ 38.511, 38.512 [Stat Ann 1958 Rev §§ 5.3361, 5.3362]). At the same time, this legislation extended to all members of the fire and police departments of such cities, villages, and municipalities, protection against political and personal preference or discrimination by their superiors. Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney, ex rel. Taxpayers, v. City of Highland Park, 308 Mich 425, 434; Winter v. Royal Oak City Manager, 317 Mich 259, 266; Olson v. City of Highland Park, 345 Mich 345, 349. Indeed, there is no room in the 1935 statutory scheme, as I read it, for preference of any kind to veterans as such.
When we turn to the specific provisions of the 2 acts, their conflicts are equally obvious and equally irreconcilable. For example, the earlier act provides that veterans “shall be preferred for appointment and employment” (section 1), whereas section 7 of the later act provides:
“On and after the date this act takes effect, appointments to and promotions in all paid fire and/or police departments of cities, villages or municipalities of any population whatsoever shall be made only according to qualifications and fitness to be ascertained by examinations, which shall be competitive, and no person shall be appointed, reinstated, promoted or discharged as a paid member of said departments regardless of rank or position, in any fire or police department of any city, village or municipality in the State of Michigan, in any manner or by any means other than those prescribed in this act.” CLS 1956, § 38.507 (Stat Ann 1958 Rev § 5.3357).
Other provisions of the later act, sections 10, 11, and 12, make it as certain as legislative inventiveness can make it that no preference be given over *151merit and fitness excepting only (section 10  ) in favor of an applicant who has formerly served in such, department for more than 10 years and who, within the preceding 2 years, has resigned therefrom at a time when no charges of misconduct or other misfeasance were pending.
Furthermore, the provisions of the veterans’ preference act (section 2) prohibiting removal, suspension or transfer of veterans except for stated causes and providing for a hearing, are inconsistent with the comparable provisions (section 14  ) of the later civil service act which apply to nonveterans as well as veterans, specify different causes for removal or disciplinary action, and provide an entirely different hearing, before different officers, upon different notice, and at different times. Moreover, section 2a of the veterans’ preference act  permits reductions in force on the basis not only of seniority of service, but also “on the basis of quality of service as determined by the employing authority, and those having the least seniority and least quality of service shall be first removed”, apparently without preference to veterans, whereas section 14 of the civil service act requires such removals to be strictly “in numerical order commencing with the last man appointed to the fire or police department.”
These, as well as other, irreconcilable conflicts in the objectives and specific provisions of the 2 acts compel my conclusion that they cannot rationally be applied simultaneously and the absence of legislative language expressly so stating does not relieve us in this case of the obligation so to rule. Nor does the absence of legislative language of express repeal compel our construing the 2 acts in such a strained *152fashion that the civil service commissions authorized by the later act are denied the power to determine rights to “original employment and retention” when veterans are involved, in the face of the legislature’s apodictic purpose in granting such commissions exclusive authority over appointments, promotions, discharges, and lesser disciplinary actions against firemen and policemen in cities, villages, and municipalities electing to adopt the act. If it be the legislative will to authorize preference of veterans in systems of public employment required otherwise to be based on merit, the legislature can so provide in express terms establishing the standards and the methods by which such preference may be accomplished. It has not yet done so.
I would affirm, but without costs, a public question being involved.

 CL 1948, § 35.401 et seq., as amended (Stat Ann 1961 Rev § 4.1221 et seq.).

 CL 1948, § 38.501 et seq., as amended (Stat Ann 1958 Rev § 5.3351 et seq.).

 CLS 1956, § 38.517a (Stat Ann 1958 Rev § 5.3368).