Bankhead v. McEwan

• Decision Date: 20 June 1972
• Docket Number: No. 7,7
• Citation: 387 Mich. 610,198 N.W.2d 414
• Parties: Francis BANKHEAD et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. John McEWAN, Mayor of River Rouge, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 414

198 N.W.2d 414

387 Mich. 610

Francis BANKHEAD et al., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. John McEWAN, Mayor of River Rouge, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 7.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

June 20, 1972.

Wayne County Neighborhood Legal Services, Craig P. Colby, River Rouge, for plaintiffs-appellants.

Logan & Huchla, City Attys., River Rouge, for defendant-appellee.

Before the Entire Bench.

PER CURIAM.

This is an action for a writ of mandamus to compel the Mayor of the City of River Rouge to establish a Board of Tenant Affairs. River Rouge has a population of less than 20,000 persons, 300 units of low income housing, and a housing commission. Plaintiffs are tenants in the housing units.

The title of 1968 P.A. 344 reads as follows:

'An act to authorize any city, village or township to purchase, acquire, construct, maintain, operate, improve, extend and repair housing facilities; to eliminate housing conditions which are detrimental to the public peace, health, safety, morals or welfare; * * * to create by a commission with power to effectuate said purposes, * * *. * * * to authorize any such city, village or township to issue notes and revenue bonds; * * * to regulate the rentals of such projects and the use of the revenues of the projects; to prescribe the manner of selecting tenants for such projects; to provide for condemnation of private property for such projects; * * * to receive aid and cooperation of the federal government; to provide for a referendum thereon; To create a board of tenant affairs in any city of 1,000,000 or over having a housing commission and operating 1 or more housing projects; * * *.' (Emphasis added.)

Section 49 of the act reads:

'There is created a board of tenant affairs for Each city, village or township having a housing commission and operating 1 or more housing projects as provided by this act.' (Emphasis added.)

Defendant's motion for accelerated judgment was denied by Judge Thomas Roumell who found that the act provided for a Board of Tenant Affairs in River Rouge.

Upon appeal to the Court of Appeals, a majority of the panel reversed the circuit court on the basis that where the body of the act is broader in scope than the limitations of the title, the title prevails. (35 Mich.App. 7, 192 N.W.2d 289 (1971)). The Court of Appeals also ruled that this holding did not deprive plaintiffs of equal protection or violate the Michigan constitutional ban against special or local acts (Const.1963, art. 4, § 29) as the classification in the title was reasonable.

Judge Levin, concurring in part and dissenting in part, agreed that the population limitation must be read into section 49. However, he found that the population classification was unreasonable and created a special or local act. To save the act, he would have eliminated the population classification altogether.

Plaintiffs were granted leave to appeal to this Court. (386 Mich. 754).

I. Is section 49 of 1968 P.A. 344 (M.C.L.A. § 125.699; M.S.A. § 5.3056(3)), unconstitutional for failure to conform to the object of the act as stated in its title?

In the case of Maki v. East Tawas, 385 Mich. 151, 188 N.W.2d 593 (1971), the constitutionality of an act (1964 P.A. 170) ¹ was challenged. The title of the act purported to grant governmental immunity from injuries caused by negligence. Section 7 of the body of the act purported to grant governmental immunity from all tort liability. The majority opinion noted that 'negligence' was a specific legal action (a 'species of a generic action based in torts') and to construe 'torts' to mean 'torts caused by negligence,' 'would require this court to engage in judicial legislation.' (385 Mich. 151, 158, 188 N.W.2d 593, 595). A majority held that the scope of section 7 was broader than the title and, therefore, violated art. 4, § 24 of the Michigan Constitution of 1963. ²

In Vernor v. Secretary of State, 179 Mich. 157, 160, 146 N.W. 338, 339 (1914), it was said:

'What is the constitutional test? We think it is that a title must embrace the object of the act, and the body of the act must not be inconsistent with the title. The pertinent questions should be: Does the title of the act fairly indicate the purpose of the legislation? Is the title a fair index of the act? Does the title of the act fairly inform the legislators and the public of its purposes, as a whole?'

In the case of Ryerson v. Utley, 16 Mich. 269, 277 (1868), it was said:

'The constitution provides (article 4, § 20) that no law shall embrace more than one object, which shall be expressed in its title. We have heretofore had occasion to consider this section, and have said of it that it ought to be construed reasonably, and not in so narrow and technical a sense as unnecessarily to embarrass legislation * * *.' ³

In the present case, even though the title has a population requirement with regard to cities, the fact that the body of the act contains no such population requirement does not prevent this Court from recognizing the intention of the legislature as set forth in the title. In Callaghan v. Chipman, 59 Mich. 610, 614--615, 26 N.W. 806, 808 (1886), the Court quoted with approval from Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (1st ed), p. 149:

'* * * 'as the legislature may make the title to an act as restrictive as they please, it is obvious that they may sometimes so frame it as to Preclude many matters being included in the act which might, with entire propriety, have been embraced in one enactment with the matters indicated by the title, but which must now be excluded because the title has been made unnecessarily restrictive. The courts Cannot enlarge the scope of the title. They are vested with no dispensing power. The constitution has made the Title the Index to the legislative intent as to what shall have operation. It is no answer to say that the title might have been made more comprehensive, if in fact the legislature have not seen fit to make it so.' * * *.

'The object and purposes of the constitutional...