Ballman v. Borges

• Decision Date: 24 October 1997
• Docket Number: Docket No. 193746
• Citation: 226 Mich.App. 166,572 N.W.2d 47
• Parties: Patricia BALLMAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jose BORGES and Maria Borges, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 47

572 N.W.2d 47

226 Mich.App. 166

Patricia BALLMAN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jose BORGES and Maria Borges, Defendants-Appellants.

Docket No. 193746.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted Sept. 4, 1997, at Grand Rapids.

Decided Oct. 24, 1997, at 9:20 a.m.

Released for Publication Jan. 22, 1998.

Joann E. Killen, P.C. by Joann E. Killen, Kalamazoo, for defendants-appellants.

Before O'CONNELL, P.J., and MacKENZIE and GAGE, JJ.

O'CONNELL, Presiding Judge.

In this landlord-tenant action, defendants appeal by leave granted an order of the circuit court affirming an order of the district court. The effect of the order appealed was to require defendants to refund plaintiff, their tenant, approximately $3,200 that plaintiff had paid in rent, plus costs. We reverse.

After discovering that the property in which she was living had been condemned several years before, plaintiff brought suit against defendants, her landlords, seeking recovery of all the rent she had paid. Although she conceded in a related proceeding that the property was in reasonable condition and that defendants, who had not owned the property at the time it was condemned, had expended quite a bit of effort remodeling, she asserted that Kalamazoo City Ordinances, § 17-9, allowed her to recover the rent she had paid during the period in which the property had been condemned. Though the district court disagreed, her position was vindicated on appeal in the circuit court, and judgment was subsequently entered in her favor in the district court. Defendants then appealed to the circuit court, which affirmed. Defendants now appeal to this Court by leave granted.

The rules applicable to statutory construction apply to the construction of ordinances as well. Albright v. Portage, 188 Mich.App. 342, 350, 470 N.W.2d 657 (1991). The primary goal of statutory interpretation and, by implication, the interpretation of ordinances, is to give effect to the intent of the legislative body. Farrington v. Total Petroleum, Inc., 442 Mich. 201, 212, 501 N.W.2d 76 (1993). The first criterion in determining intent is the specific language used by the legislative body in the statute or ordinance. House Speaker v. State Administrative Bd., 441 Mich. 547, 567, 495 N.W.2d 539 (1993). If the plain and ordinary language is clear, then judicial construction is normally neither necessary nor permitted. Lorencz v. Ford Motor Co., 439 Mich. 370, 376, 483 N.W.2d 844 (1992). However, the court may refer to dictionary definitions when appropriate when ascertaining the precise meaning of a particular term. Popma v. Auto Club Ins. Ass'n, 446 Mich. 460, 470, 521 N.W.2d 831 (1994). We review a lower court's interpretation of the meaning of an ordinance de novo. See Smeets v. Genesee Co. Clerk, 193 Mich.App. 628, 633, 484 N.W.2d 770 (1992).

At issue in the present case is whether the emphasized portion of the following Kalamazoo City Ordinance gives rise to a cause of action on the part of a tenant against the tenant's landlord:

If any building constructed as or altered into a dwelling is occupied in whole or in part for human habitation in violation of this chapter so that the same is unfit for human habitation during the unlawful occupation, no rent shall be recoverable by the owner or lessor of the premises for the period; no action or special proceedings shall be maintained for possession of the premises for nonpayment of rent; and the premises may be declared unfit for human habitation and the building official may cause them to be vacated accordingly. [Kalamazoo City Ordinances, § 17-9 (emphasis supplied).]

We conclude that it does not.

As relevant to the present appeal, the ordinance provides only that "no rent shall be recoverable by the owner or lessor of the premises for the period...." First, we would note that plaintiff is neither the "owner" nor the "lessor" of the premises in question; she is the tenant, the lessee. Given that the ordinance purports...