O'Connell v. Dir. of Elections

• Decision Date: 23 June 2016
• Docket Number: Docket No. 332132.
• Citation: 891 N.W.2d 240,316 Mich.App. 91
• Parties: O'CONNELL v. DIRECTOR OF ELECTIONS.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

316 Mich.App. 91

891 N.W.2d 240

O'CONNELL

v.DIRECTOR OF ELECTIONS.

Docket No. 332132.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted June 7, 2016, at Lansing.

Decided June 23, 2016, at 9:10 a.m.

Allan Falk, PC, Okemos (by Allan Falk ), for Judge Peter D. O'Connell.

Bill Schuette, Attorney General, Aaron D. Lindstrom, Solicitor General, Matthew Schneider, Chief Legal Counsel, and Denise C. Barton, Erik A. Grill, Joseph Ho, Adam Fracassi, and Josh Booth, Assistant Attorneys General, for the Director of Elections, the Bureau of Elections, and the Michigan Department of State.

Before: SAWYER, P.J., and HOEKSTRA and WILDER, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Plaintiff appeals as of right the Court of Claims order dismissing his mandamus complaint for want of subject-matter jurisdiction. We reverse and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

The underlying facts are undisputed and are largely a matter of public record. In November 2012, plaintiff was reelected to serve a six-year term as a judge on the Court of Appeals in the fourth district. The term of office to which plaintiff was reelected will expire January 1, 2019. However, because plaintiff will have attained the age of 70 before the general election occurring in November 2018, plaintiff will be ineligible to run for reelection to a new six-year term of office in that seat on the Court.¹ Judge MICHAEL GADOLA was appointed to this Court in November 2014 to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of his predecessor, Judge WILLIAM WHITBECK. Because Judge WHITBECK 's term would have expired on January 1, 2017, Judge GADOLA is eligible to run for the 2017 to 2023 term as an incumbent judge of the Court. Rather than serving the entirety of his current term of office, plaintiff seeks to be reelected to the Court of Appeals in a different term of office, the 2017 to 2023 term, in other words, in the seat currently occupied by Judge GADOLA. Despite the fact that this particular seat on the Court is currently occupied by Judge GADOLA, plaintiff asserts that because he is currently an incumbent judge of the Court of Appeals, he is not required to complete his current term of office but instead may seek to be reelected to the Court for the 2017 to 2023 term of office as an incumbent. Plaintiff filed an Affidavit of Candidacy pursuant to Const. 1963, art. 6, § 22 and MCL 168.409b(6), asserting that he "will not have attained the age of 70 years by November 8, 2016," and an Affidavit of Identity stating that he seeks the office entitled "Judge, Michigan Court of Appeals, Fourth District."

After correspondence between plaintiff and Christopher Thomas, the state of Michigan's Director of Elections, Thomas notified plaintiff in correspondence dated February 5, 2016, that the Bureau of Elections had rejected plaintiff's Affidavit of Candidacy and Affidavit of Identity. In additional correspondence dated February 5, 2016, the Secretary of State wrote to plaintiff:

On this date, the Hon. Peter O'Connell, Judge of the Court of Appeals, tendered an Affidavit of Candidacy and Affidavit of Identity for the purpose of qualifying as a candidate for the office of Judge of the Court of Appeals, 4th District, Regular Term Incumbent Position.

Judge O'Connell's Affidavit of Candidacy and Affidavit of Identity were rejected by the Secretary of State on this date for the reasons stated in a letter from Christopher M. Thomas, Director of Elections to Judge O'Connell dated January 21, 2016.

Following the Secretary of State's rejection of his Affidavit of Candidacy and Affidavit of Identity, plaintiff filed a Verified Complaint for Mandamus, Ex Parte Motion for Order to Show Cause, and Brief in Support of Complaint for Mandamus in the Court of Claims. Relevant to this appeal, plaintiff asserted that the Court of Claims has exclusive jurisdiction over demands for an extraordinary writ against the state or the state's departments or officers. In their answer to the complaint, defendants agreed that the Court of Claims had jurisdiction, but asserted that this Court also had jurisdiction, and that jurisdiction "may be more time-efficient in the Court of Appeals because in elections cases, time is of the essence."

The Court of Claims determined that it did not have subject-matter jurisdiction over plaintiff's complaint for a writ of mandamus. Concluding that Article 6, § 13 of the 1963 Constitution conferred on the circuit courts exclusive jurisdiction to issue prerogative and remedial writs, including writs of mandamus, the Court of Claims ruled that circuit courts held "plenary jurisdiction in matters of mandamus ... which may not be abrogated by statute." The Court of Claims considered and rejected plaintiff's argument that MCL 600.6419, as amended by 2013 PA 164, extended the Court of Claims' jurisdiction to actions for mandamus. Quoting MCL 600.6419(6), which provides that " ‘[t]his chapter does not deprive the circuit court of exclusive jurisdiction to issue, hear, and determine prerogative and remedial writs consistent with section 13 of article VI of the state constitution of 1963,’ " the Court of Claims concluded that the Legislature could not delegate the circuit court's constitutional powers, including with respect to prerogative and remedial writs, to the legislatively created Court of Claims. (Emphasis added by the Court of Claims.) The Court of Claims dismissed plaintiff's complaint, and this appeal ensued.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

"A challenge to the jurisdiction of the Court of Claims presents a statutory question that is reviewed de novo as a question of law." AFSCME Council 25 v. State Employees' Retirement Sys., 294 Mich.App. 1, 6, 818 N.W.2d 337 (2011). We also review de novo questions regarding the proper interpretation of our 1963 Constitution. Mayor of Cadillac v. Blackburn, 306 Mich.App. 512, 516, 857 N.W.2d 529 (2014).

III. PRINCIPLES OF CONSTRUCTION

The issue at bar revolves around the correct interpretation of several statutes and constitutional provisions.

The primary objective in interpreting a constitutional provision is to determine the text's original meaning to the ratifiers, the people, at the time of ratification. This rule of "common understanding" has been described by Justice COOLEY in this way:

A constitution is made for the people and by the people. The interpretation that should be given it is that which reasonable minds, the great mass of the people themselves, would give it. For as the Constitution does not derive its force from the conventionwhich framed, but from the people who ratified it, the intent to be arrived at is that of the people, and it is not to be supposed that they have looked for any dark or abstruse meaning in the words employed, but rather that they have accepted them in the sense most obvious to the common understanding, and ratified the instrument in the belief that that was the sense designed to be conveyed.

In short, the primary objective of constitutional interpretation is to realize the intent of the people by whom and for whom the constitution was ratified.

This Court typically discerns the common understanding of constitutional text by applying each term's plain meaning at the time of ratification. But if the constitution employs technical or legal terms of art, we are to construe those words in their technical, legal sense. [Wayne Co. v. Hathcock, 471 Mich. 445, 468–469, 684 N.W.2d 765 (2004) (quotations marks and citations omitted).]

"The primary goal of statutory interpretation is to ascertain the legislative intent that may be reasonably inferred from the words expressed in the statute." Epps v. 4 Quarters Restoration LLC, 498 Mich. 518, 529, 872 N.W.2d 412 (2015) (quotation marks and citation omitted). "When the language of a statute is clear, it is presumed that the Legislature intended the meaning expressed therein." Id. "[I]f the intent of the Legislature is not clear, courts must interpret statutes in a way that gives effect to every word, phrase, and clause in a statute and avoid an interpretation that would render any part of the statute surplusage or nugatory." Haynes v. Village of Beulah, 308 Mich.App. 465, 468, 865 N.W.2d 923 (2014) (quotation marks and citation omitted).

"Judicial interpretation of statutes should construe an act as a whole to harmonize its provisions and carry out the purpose of the Legislature." Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted). When there is "tension, or even conflict, between sections of a statute," this Court has a "duty to, if reasonably possible, construe them both so as to give meaning to each; that is, to harmonize them." Nowell v. Titan Ins. Co., 466 Mich. 478, 483, 648 N.W.2d 157 (2002). If the provisions of a statute cannot be entirely harmonized without some violation of the rules of statutory interpretation, the Court should adopt the interpretation that "does the least damage to what otherwise appears to be plain language in the statute...." Niggeling v. Dep't of Transp., 183 Mich.App. 770, 781, 455 N.W.2d 415 (1990). "Statutes that relate to the same subject or that share a common purpose are in pari materia and must be read together as one law, even if they contain no reference to one another and were enacted on different dates." Mich. Deferred Presentment Servs. Ass'n, Inc. v. Comm'r of Office of Fin. & Ins. Regulation, 287 Mich.App. 326, 334, 788 N.W.2d 842 (2010) (quotation marks and citation omitted). "The object of the in pari materia rule is to give effect to the legislative intent expressed in harmonious statutes." Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted). "When there is a conflict between statutes that are read in para materia, the more recent and more specific statute controls over the older and more general statute." People v. Buehler, 477 Mich. 18, 26, 727 N.W.2d 127 (2007).

"[A] general rule of statutory construction is that the Legislature is presumed to know of and legislate in harmony with existing laws." Herrick Dist. Library v. Library of Mich., 293 Mich.App....