Judicial Attorneys Ass'n v. State

• Decision Date: 28 December 1998
• Docket Number: No. 8,111785,Docket Nos. 111782,8
• Citation: 459 Mich. 291,586 N.W.2d 894
• Parties: JUDICIAL ATTORNEYS ASSOCIATION, Plaintiffs-Appellees, and Government Administrators Association, Plaintiffs-Appellees and Cross-Appellants, v. STATE of Michigan, Governor and Attorney General, Defendants-Appellants, and County of Wayne and Wayne County Board of Commissioners, Defendants-Cross Plaintiffs. Calendar
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 894

586 N.W.2d 894

459 Mich. 291

JUDICIAL ATTORNEYS ASSOCIATION Plaintiffs-Appellees and Government Administrators Association, Plaintiffs-Appellees and Cross-Appellants, v. STATE of Michigan, Governor and Attorney General Defendants-Appellants and County of Wayne and Wayne County Board of Commissioners, Defendants-Cross Plaintiffs.

Docket Nos. 111782, 111785.

Calendar No. 8.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued Oct. 7, 1998.

Decided Dec. 28, 1998.

[459 Mich. 293] Lee R. Franklin, Detroit, MI, for plaintiff-appellee Judicial Attorneys Association.

Gregory, Moore, Jeakle, Heinen, Ellison, Brooks & Lane, P.C. (by Mark L. Heinen ), Detroit, MI, for plaintiff-appellee/cross-appellant Governmental Administrators Association.

Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, and Gary P. Gordon and Katherine C. Galvin, Assistant Attorneys General, Lansing, MI, for defendants-appellants and cross-appellees State of Michigan, Governor John Engler, and Attorney General Frank J. Kelley.

Jennifer M. Granholm, Wayne County Corporation Counsel, and Edward Ewell, Jr., Deputy Corporation Counsel, Detroit, MI; and Fink Zausmer, P.C. (by David H. Fink, Gary K. August, and Amy M. Sitner ), Detroit, MI, for defendants/cross-plaintiffs/appellants, Wayne County and Wayne County Board of Commissioners.

OPINION

MALLETT, C.J.

In the case of Judicial Attorneys Association and Government Administrators Ass'n v. State of Michigan, we granted leave to determine whether a provision of 1996 PA 374, MCL 600.593a; MSA 27A.593a, violates the Separation of Powers Clause of Const 1963, art 3, § 2, and the rights of members of the plaintiffs under the public employee relations act (PERA), M.C.L. § 423.201 et seq.; MSA 17.455(1) et seq. 457 Mich. 882, 586 N.W.2d 925 (1998).

We hold that subsections 593a(3)-(10) and the parallel provisions of §§ 591, 837, 8271, 8273 and 8274 of 1996 PA 374, concerning employees of the circuit, probate, and district courts, are unconstitutional. This finding makes the issue concerning the PERA moot. Under separate order we enact Administrative Order No.1998-5, concerning chief judge responsibilities and local intergovernmental relations.

I

1996 PA 374 provided that, effective October 1, 1996, a local judicial council ¹ created pursuant to the act or Wayne County became the employer of the employees of the Third Judicial Circuit and Recorder's Court, ² rather than the State Judicial Council abolished by the act.

(3) If the Wayne county judicial council is not created pursuant to subsection (1), the employees of the former state judicial council serving in the circuit in the third judicial circuit or in the recorder's court of the city of Detroit shall become employees of the county of Wayne, effective October 1, 1996.

(4) The employer designated under subsection (2) or (3), in concurrence with the chief judge of the appropriate court has the following authority:

(a) To establish personnel policies and procedures, including, but not limited to, policies and procedures relating to compensation, fringe benefits, pensions, holidays, leave, work schedules, discipline, grievances, personnel records, probation, and hiring and termination practices.

(b) To make and enter into collective bargaining agreements with representatives of those employees.

(5) If the employer designated under subsection (2) or (3) and the appropriate chief judge are not able to concur on the exercise of their authority as to any matter described in subsection (4)(a), that authority shall be exercised by either the employer or the chief judge as follows:

(a) The employer has the authority to establish policies and procedures relating to compensation, fringe benefits, pensions, holidays, and leave.

(b) The chief judge has the authority to establish policies and procedures relating to work schedules, discipline, grievances, personnel records, probation, hiring and termination practices, and other personnel matters not included in subdivision (a).

On September 26, 1996, the plaintiffs--two unions whose members performed work in the Third Circuit and Recorder's Courts--brought this action challenging the change of employer. The trial court issued a preliminary injunction on September 30, 1996, enjoining the change. On October 9, 1996, the Court of Appeals granted the defendants' motion for a stay of the preliminary injunction. The trial court subsequently issued a permanent injunction against enforcement of § 593a to the extent that it made Wayne County a coemployer of plaintiffs' members, but stayed the injunction pending a final decision by the appellate courts.

On March 3, 1998 the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's finding that § 593a violated the separation of powers doctrine. ³ 228 Mich.App. 386, 579 N.W.2d 378 (1998). The majority held that the circuit court, as a division of Michigan's one court of justice, "possesses the inherent and exclusive power to manage all its operations," id. at 413, 579 N.W.2d 378, that the court's inherent administrative powers include the authority to manage all personnel matters affecting employees working within its branch, and that a "usurpation of all the court's employees can be viewed as [a] ... dangerous incursion into the judicial realm" by the legislative branch. ⁴ Id. at 416, 579 N.W.2d 378. We affirm.

II

Const 1963, art 3, § 2 provides:

The powers of government are divided into three branches: legislative, executive and judicial. No person exercising powers of one branch shall exercise powers properly belonging to another branch except as expressly provided in this constitution.

This Court has established that the separation of powers doctrine does not require so strict a separation as to provide no overlap of responsibilities and powers. In re Southard, 298 Mich. 75, 83, 298 N.W. 457 (1941); People v. Piasecki, 333 Mich. 122, 146-148, 52 N.W.2d 626 (1952); Soap & Detergent Ass'n v. Natural Resources Comm., 415 Mich. 728, 752, 330 N.W.2d 346 (1982). If the grant of authority to one branch is limited and specific and does not create encroachment or aggrandizement of one branch at the expense of the other, a sharing of power may be constitutionally permissible. Soap & Detergent Ass'n, supra at 752-753, 330 N.W.2d 346; Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. 361, 382, 109 S.Ct. 647, 102 L.Ed.2d 714 (1989).

For purposes of determining the constitutionality of § 593a, the critical questions are whether the judicial branch's powers necessarily include the administrative function of controlling those who work within the judicial branch, and, if so, whether the legislatively prescribed sharing of personnel functions delineated in § 593a is sufficiently limited and specific so as not to encroach on the exercise of the constitutional responsibilities of the judicial branch.

That the management of the employees of the judicial branch falls within the constitutional authority and responsibility of the judicial branch is well established. The power of each branch of government within its separate sphere necessarily includes managerial administrative authority to carry out its operations. As this Court explained in Judges for Third Judicial Circuit v. Wayne Co., 383 Mich. 10, 21-22, 172 N.W.2d 436 (1969), superseded by 386 Mich. 1, 190 N.W.2d 228 (1971) (on rehearing):

It is simply impossible for a judge to do nothing but judge; a legislator to do nothing but legislate; a governor to do nothing but execute the laws. The proper exercise of each of these three great powers of government necessarily includes some ancillary inherent capacity to do things which are normally done by the other departments.

Thus, both the legislative department and the judicial department have certain housekeeping chores which are prerequisite to the exercise of legislative and judicial power. And, to accomplish those housekeeping chores both departments have inherently a measure of administrative authority not unlike that primarily and exclusively vested in the executive department. [383 Mich. at 20-21, 172 N.W.2d 436.]

The application of this principle to state-paid employees within each branch of government has long been uncontroversial. The Legislature provides the funding for all state employees, but state employees working for the Legislature are unquestionably under the exclusive control of the Legislature, those working for the executive branch, under the exclusive control of the executive branch, and those working for the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, under the exclusive control of the judicial branch.

What has proved to be so obvious in the context of state employees, however, has been more elusive in the context of Michigan's trial courts, whose employees have not always enjoyed the same clarity of status as their state-paid counterparts. ⁵ The explanation for this phenomenon surely lies in the complicated and diverse history of our trial courts.

There is no public environment in the state of Michigan more complex than the trial court component of the state's "one court of justice." Under art 6, § 4 of the state constitution, the Michigan Supreme Court has general supervisory control of the courts and is constitutionally responsible for the efficient and effective operation of all courts within the state court system, but the day-to-day operation of the state's trial courts is in the hands of the chief judges of each court. The chief judges in turn are accountable to the Supreme Court and to the public for the operation of their courts, and are dependent on over 150 separate local governmental units for the bulk of the operational funding for their courts. Const 1963, art 6, §§ 1, 4. MCR 8.110. Grand Traverse Co. v. Michigan, 450 Mich. 457, 475, 538 N.W.2d 1 (1995). As a further complication, the jurisdiction of some courts is spread across several counties or municipalities, which must share funding responsibilities.

Despite the complications of the...