Kalamazoo Police Supervisor's Ass'n v. City of Kalamazoo
| Decision Date | 06 February 1984 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 64699 |
| Citation | 343 N.W.2d 601,130 Mich.App. 513 |
| Parties | KALAMAZOO POLICE SUPERVISORS' ASSOCIATION, The Kalamazoo Police Officers' Association and The International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 394, Plaintiffs-Appellees. v. The CITY OF KALAMAZOO, a Michigan municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US |
Brown, Colman & DeMent, P.C. by Loyal A. Eldridge and Kevin M. McCarthy, Kalamazoo, for defendant-appellant.
Before V.J. BRENNAN, P.J., SHEPHERD and QUINNELL, * JJ.
The International Association of Fire Fighters, Kalamazoo Police Supervisors' Association, and the Kalamazoo Police Officers' Association, voluntarily entered into negotiations with the City of Kalamazoo, pursuant to the public employment relations act (PERA), concerning the terms and conditions of employment that would apply to them if the city decided to eliminate its existing Fire Department and Police Department and establish a Department of Public Safety. It was understood from the beginning of the negotiations that the city was not considering maintaining separate police and fire departments or divisions with one public safety director overseeing the operations of both, but rather an integrated public safety department in which public safety officers would perform both fire fighting and law enforcement functions.
Pursuant to the negotiated and ratified collective bargaining agreements, each police officer and fire fighter, in accordance with seniority, may elect to be cross-trained and become a public safety officer. Those employees who elect not to be cross-trained will remain in their traditional fire fighter or police officer functions. Specifically, each fire fighter who does not become a public safety officer will remain on the current twenty-four hour duty cycle that clearly complies with the fire department hours of labor act. M.C.L. Sec. 123.841; M.S.A. Sec. 5.3331.
At issue here is the hours of work provision negotiated for public safety officers. Pursuant to this provision, public safety officers will be scheduled for twelve hour work days and an average forty-two hour work week.
Following ratification of the agreements by a substantial majority of the membership of each union, each employee was asked to sign a Notice of Intent to Enter The Public Safety Program. Of specific interest is the fact that almost half of the employees who responded in the Kalamazoo Fire Department stated that it was their intention to become public safety officers. The Notices Of Intent were executed with full knowledge of the negotiated forty-two hour work week and levels of compensation established for public safety officers.
The unions and the city agreed to seek a declaratory judgment from the Kalamazoo County Circuit Court regarding the legality of the negotiated hours of work for public safety officers. The circuit court held that the hours of labor act is applicable to the facts of this case and that the negotiated hours of work provision is in violation of the act. From this decision all parties have joined in this appeal.
The first issue here involved is whether there exists a case or controversy such that the court may exercise its jurisdiction over this declaratory judgment action. GCR 1963, 521.1 grants circuit courts the power to declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking a declaratory judgment. It is the general rule of this state that a case or actual controversy exists where the parties seek to determine the applicability of a penal statute to the performance of their business or trade.
Because GCR 521 was intended to provide the broadest type of declaratory judgment procedure possible and is remedial, it is to be liberally construed in order to make courts more accessible to interested parties. Comm'r of Revenue v. Grand Trunk W.R. Co., 326 Mich. 371; 40 N.W.2d 188 (1949); Bloomfield Hills v. Ziegelman, 110 Mich.App. 530; 313 N.W.2d 137 (1981), rev'd on other grounds, 413 Mich. 911, 320 N.W.2d 53 (1982); Official Committee Comment to GCR 521.
In Strager v. Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney, 10 Mich.App. 166, 170-171; 159 N.W.2d 175 (1968), it was held that a declaratory judgment is a proper remedy to test the validity of a criminal statute where that statute affects the trade or business of the interested parties.
The "trades or businesses" of all parties in this action are affected by the act. As to the defendant, it is affected because it may be restricted in the hours it may schedule public safety officers to work and may be forced to hire additional employees if a new hours schedule must be implemented. As for the plaintiffs, the "trades or businesses" of their individual members are directly affected by the court's determination of whether the act applies to the Kalamazoo Public Safety Department in that this decision will have an immediate impact upon their hours of work.
Further, Strager, p. 171, 159 N.W.2d 175, states that affording businessmen declaratory relief in such situations without having first to be arrested is one of the functions of the declaratory judgment procedure. Defendant's City Manager and City Commissioners could be subject to fines and/or imprisonment should defendant be found to be in violation of the act. Affording defendant some guidance so as to avoid this situation is, according to Strager, one of the functions of the declaratory judgment procedure.
Michigan courts have consistently upheld the right to seek declaratory relief where interested parties have sought the guidance of courts prior to there being an actual violation of a statute. See, Grocer's Dairy Co. v. Dep't of Agriculture Director, 377 Mich. 71; 138 N.W.2d 767 (1966); Arlan's Department Stores, Inc. v. Attorney General, 374 Mich. 70; 130 N.W.2d 892 (1964); Levy v. Pontiac, 331 Mich. 100; 49 N.W.2d 80 (1951); Carolene Products Co. v. Thomson, 276 Mich. 172; 267 N.W. 608 (1936); National Amusement Co. v. Johnson, 270 Mich. 613; 259 N.W. 342 (1935). The fact that no party is yet in violation of the act does not deny the parties the right to declaratory relief. One test of the right to institute such proceedings is the necessity of present adjudication as a guide for interested parties' future conduct in order to preserve their legal rights. Bane v. Pontiac Twp., 343 Mich. 481; 72 N.W.2d 134 (1955); Village of Breedsville v. Columbia Twp., 312 Mich. 47; 19 N.W.2d 482 (1945); Updegraff v. Attorney General, 298 Mich. 48; 298 N.W. 400 (1941); Rott v. Standard Accident Ins. Co., 299 Mich. 384; 300 N.W. 134 (1941).
This is precisely why the parties seek declaratory relief; they seek guidance from this Court as to whether their proposed hours of work schedule would run afoul of the act.
As a further basis for holding that there is a case or controversy ripe for decision, we point out that the unions are willing at this time to have the agreement enforced, whereas, the city has taken the position that it will not enforce the agreement unless a court passes upon its validity. The parties are therefore in disagreement on this vital point even though both parties wish to have the court reach the same result.
The next question relates to whether the fire department hours of labor act applies to the Kalamazoo public safety department and to the hours of work established for public safety officers under the proposed collective bargaining agreement. Section 1 of the hours of labor act provides as follows:
(Emphasis supplied.) M.C.L. Sec. 123.841; M.S.A. Sec. 5.3331.
This act was enacted in 1925, at a time when the concept of a public safety department was nonexistent. In 1947, this provision was amended to include the phrase "who is engaged in fire fighting or subject to the hazards thereof", which amendment was clearly intended to limit or restrict the reach of this provision, in response to an opinion of the Attorney General stating that the act as then written would apply to dispatchers and clerical personnel employed by fire departments, as well as to fire fighters. See OAG, 1943-1944, No 24485, p 76 (September 3, 1942).
The hours of work provision here at issue does not violate the above-quoted statute because the hours of labor act only applies to traditional fire departments, not to the hours of work of public safety officers in fully integrated public safety departments.
The hours of labor act is restricted in scope to municipalities maintaining "an organized paid or part-paid fire department" and prohibits such municipalities from requiring "any person in the employ of the fire department" from working hours in excess of those prescribed in the statute. In 1925, when this statute was enacted, there was no entity such as a public safety department. Cities maintained separate police and fire departments whose functions were not intertwined. The chain of command in each department was kept completely separate,...
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