Mair v. Consumers Power Co.

• Decision Date: 05 June 1984
• Docket Number: No. 12,Docket No. 68921,12
• Citation: 419 Mich. 74,348 N.W.2d 256
• Parties: Norma MAIR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CONSUMERS POWER COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. Calendar419 Mich. 74, 348 N.W.2d 256, 41 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1870
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 256

348 N.W.2d 256

Norma MAIR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CONSUMERS POWER COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee.

Docket No. 68921.

Calendar No. 12.

419 Mich. 74, 348 N.W.2d 256, 41 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA)

1870

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued Oct. 6, 1983.

Decided June 5, 1984.

Robert L. Hamburger, Rothe, Mazey, Mazey & Hamburger, P.C., Southfield, for plaintiff-appellant.

Gregory A. Sando, Jackson, for defendant-appellee.

BRICKLEY, Justice.

This case presents the first opportunity for this Court to consider whether a proceeding before a federal administrative agency tolls our statute of limitations as it applies to a subsequent lawsuit in the courts of this state. We hold that it does not.

In April of 1977, plaintiff, Norma Mair, terminated her employment with defendant, Consumers Power Company. In August of that year, she filed a charge with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission pursuant to Sec. 706 of title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et seq., alleging that she was the victim of sex discrimination in the course of her employment.

After investigating plaintiff's charge, the EEOC, in May of 1980, dismissed the complaint against the defendant for the reason that the evidence did not provide reasonable cause to support the claim. Plaintiff did not seek further federal relief under title VII by filing suit within 90 days, as allowed by Sec. 706 of the act, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e-5.

In August of 1980, three years and four months after her last day of employment with defendant, plaintiff filed an action in the Macomb Circuit Court, alleging discrimination because of age and sex in violation of Sec. 202(1) of the Michigan Civil Rights Act, M.C.L. Sec. 37.2101 et seq.; M.S.A. Sec. 3.548(101) et seq. The trial court granted the defendant's motion for accelerated judgment in December of 1980 on the grounds that the three-year statute of limitations had expired, barring plaintiff's claim. M.C.L. Sec. 600.5805(8); M.S.A. Sec. 27A.5805(8). The Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the trial court in an unpublished opinion, and we granted plaintiff's application for leave to appeal. 417 Mich. 884 (1983).

The plaintiff does not dispute the applicability of the three-year statute of limitations or that that period was exceeded before she filed this suit. Rather, plaintiff contends that because of the effect of the Michigan tolling statute the statute of limitations was tolled for the nearly two years and ten months that her complaint was pending before the EEOC.

The tolling statute, M.C.L. Sec. 600.5856; M.S.A. Sec. 27A.5856, provides:

"The statutes of limitations are tolled when

"(1) the complaint is filed and a copy of the summons and complaint are served on the defendant, or when

"(2) jurisdiction over the defendant is otherwise acquired, or when,

"(3) the complaint is filed and a copy of the summons and complaint in good faith, are placed in the hands of an officer for immediate service, but in this case the statute shall not be tolled longer than 90 days thereafter."

The Court of Appeals, in upholding the circuit court dismissal of this case, relied on Barczak v. Rockwell International Corp., 68 Mich.App. 759, 244 N.W.2d 24 (1976), and held that subsection 2 of the tolling statute does not apply to administrative proceedings.

In Barczak the Court of Appeals was dealing with a fact situation similar to that in the present case, except that the plaintiff in Barczak sought to invoke the tolling statute because she filed a sex discrimination suit with a state administrative agency--the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. There, as here, the plaintiff sought to convince the Court that the language of subsection 2--"jurisdiction over the defendant is otherwise acquired"--would cover a nonjudicial proceeding where the parties and the issues were the same. In deciding the case, the Court of Appeals relied on dictum in Buscaino v. Rhodes, 385 Mich. 474, 482, 189 N.W.2d 202 (1971), where this Court said of subsection 2 of the tolling statute:

"It deals only with prior lawsuits between the parties which have not adjudicated the merits of the action."

Seizing on that and similar language in Smith v. Bordelove, 63 Mich.App. 384, 386, 234 N.W.2d 535 (1975), the Barczak Court dismissed the claim that subsection 2 of the tolling statute allowed an administrative action to toll the statute of limitations as to a later court action:

"We reject that view, for a long line of Michigan cases have applied the tolling provisions only when jurisdiction over defendant is gained pursuant to court proceedings involving the same cause of action. Barczak, supra, 68 Mich.App. p. 762, 244 N.W.2d 24.

Without questioning the result of Barczak, we find that the Court of Appeals placed an emphasis on the term "prior lawsuit" that this Court did not intend. Buscaino did not deal with a nonjudicial proceeding as the tolling action. Rather, the issue in Buscaino was whether a civil action was deemed commenced upon the filing of a complaint or whether service of process was also necessary for an action to be deemed commenced. Therefore, while the Court's comment about a "prior lawsuit" standing alone may seem to be precedential for the defendant's position here, in the context in which it arose we do not consider it so. Similarly, Smith did not involve a prior administrative action. It was concerned with whether an action filed during the disability of infancy tolled the statute of limitations after the age of majority was reached.

Still, our "prior lawsuit" comment in Buscaino and the Court of Appeals comment in Smith are relevant. It did not occur to this Court or the Court of Appeals to assume that the tolling event would be anything other than a lawsuit. It is not unlikely that the Legislature similarly made no such assumption.

This Court has long recognized the value of a statute of limitations. In Shadock v. Alpine Plank-road Co., 79 Mich. 7, 13, 44 N.W. 158 (1889), Justice Campbell said:

"The whole reason for statutes of limitation is found in the danger of losing testimony, and of finding difficulty in getting at precise facts."

In Wells v. The Detroit News, Inc., 360 Mich. 634, 639, 104 N.W.2d 767 (1960), we said that the "statute of limitations was designed to eliminate stale claims". And in Bigelow v. Walraven, 392 Mich. 566, 570, 221 N.W.2d 328 (1974), we said that "the statute of limitations is not a disfavored plea but a perfectly righteous defense, a meritorious defense". See, also, Lothian v. Detroit, 414 Mich. 160, 324 N.W.2d 9 (1982). For these reasons, it is the general rule that exceptions to statutes of limitation are to be strictly construed. See Bock v. Collier, 175 Or. 145, 151 P.2d 732 (1944); Woodruff v. Shores, 354 Mo. 742, 190 S.W.2d 994 (1945); Slade v. Slade, 81 N.M. 462, 468 P.2d 627 (1970); Lake v. Lietch, 550 P.2d 935 (Okl.1976).

The tolling statute does not mention administrative actions. The statute's history suggests that administrative actions were never contemplated as tolling events. In Buscaino v. Rhodes, supra, we recognized our present tolling statute as merely the successor to 1948 C.L. 609.19, which provided with considerable detail those actions which, upon dismissal, would constitute tolling events. ¹ 1948 C.L. 609.19 acted to extend the statute of limitations only when the initial action was defeated on a matter of form, not substance, and the plaintiff had acted in good faith. See Backus v. Kirsch, 264 Mich. 73, 249 N.W. 469 (1933); McMillan v. Reaume, 137 Mich. 1, 100 N.W. 166 (1904). This prior statute, with its references to "actions" and "writs or declarations" failing for lack of "service" or "default" and its further references to "verdicts" and "judgments" being "arrested" or "reversed on writ of error", obviously contemplated only a prior lawsuit as the triggering event. Those terms do not appear in our present statute. However, it is clear that the present statute was not intended to alter the purpose of that prior statute. The comments of the drafters of the statute reveal their purpose to be little more than to change the method by which the tolling time was computed and offer no hint that an administrative action was contemplated as a tolling event:

"In the event of the dismissal, on some ground other than on the merits (as for example--lack of jurisdiction over the subject matter) of an action in which jurisdiction over the defendant is acquired, the period of time from the time of service or the acquisition of jurisdiction over the defendant until dismissal will not count as a part of the time of limitation, for during such time the statute has been tolled. Subsections (1) and (2)." Final report, Joint Committee on Michigan Procedural Revision, Parts I & II, Committee Comment, Sec. 41.28, pp. 318-319 (State Bar of Michigan, 1960).

The most telling evidence that the Legislature did not contemplate administrative actions as tolling events is the structure of our present tolling statute itself. The words plaintiff seeks to rely on do not stand alone. They are sandwiched in a three-pronged description of tolling events. The first and third sections of the statute speak with great specificity, as did the predecessor statute, in terms that can only refer to a lawsuit. To conclude that the Legislature, after considerable attention to detail regarding how and when jurisdiction over the defendant is acquired in the lawsuit for purposes of tolling in two subsections of the statute, would, with only seven words, allow as a tolling event proceedings in numerous administrative forums with their myriad procedures would be to ignore the most obvious and commonsense reading of the tolling statute. Following as it does a description of how court jurisdiction is obtained by service of process, the subsection 2 phrase "jurisdiction otherwise acquired" more logically refers to the ways of acquiring jurisdiction other than by...