Baas v. Society for Christian Instruction

• Decision Date: 05 March 1964
• Docket Number: No. 24,24
• Citation: 371 Mich. 622,126 N.W.2d 721
• Parties: Irene BAAS, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. The SOCIETY FOR CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION and Auto-Owners Insurance Company, Defendants and Appellants.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 721

126 N.W.2d 721

371 Mich. 622

Irene BAAS, Plaintiff and Appellee, v. The SOCIETY FOR CHRISTIAN INSTRUCTION and Auto-Owners Insurance Company, Defendants and Appellants.

No. 24.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

March 5, 1964.

On application for rehearing.

For original opinion see 371 Mich. 622, 124 N.W.2d 744.

Rehearing denied.

Before the Entire Bench.

BLACK, Justice (dissenting).

There is but one way to account politely for the mysterious refusal of any one of the reversers of this award to acknowledge, upon the record for all to see, the existence of Michigan's 'twofold purpose' rule. ¹ It must be that Justices KELLY, DETHMERS, SMITH and O'HARA 'just haven't the time' to defend or explain, precisely upon peremptory challenge, their joint and several omission of reference to or discussion of 'twofold' cases like Anderson v. Kroger Grocery and Baking Co., 326 Mich. 429, 40 N.W.2d 209 and Wheeler v. State Department of conservation, 350 Mich. 590, 87 N.W.2d 69. My only comment is that, if this is the way manifestly pat cases (all cited in the opinions of present dissent) are supposed to be 'sterilized,' the operation will take much too long for the tenure expectancy of all Brethren seated here. The 'twofold purpose' rule is firmly rooted in Michigan, as it is elsewhere, and that rule will survive as long as workmen's compensation is paid. None but the self-blinded can fail to perceive that more and more disablements arising from more and more risks, occasioned by the crescent taking home of work that must be readied for the morrow's task, will come before the appeal board and then rise to plague our Court as a result of its inexplicable decision denying compensation to this deserving and wholly disabled schoolteacher.

Four members of the Court having voted to grant this application for rehearing, it would seem that rudimentary respect for the viewpoints of others would call for something more than the stubbornness of standpattism. Or can it be that the Brethren of reversal fear they cannot write, plausibly or otherwise, some reason for reversal all reversers can agree upon?

I would rehear, and therefore dissent from denial of rehearing by equal division of our membership.

1 'Twofold purpose' and 'dual-purpose' are employed synonymously by the authorities. For copious citation see 371 Mich. 637-654, 124 N.W.2d 752-761.