Midland Tp. v. Michigan State Boundary Commission

• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: LEVIN; MOODY; KAVANAGH
• Citation: Midland Tp. v. Michigan State Boundary Commission, 259 N.W.2d 326, 401 Mich. 641 (Mich. 1977)
• Decision Date: 24 October 1977
• Docket Number: J,Nos. 1-6,s. 1-6
• Parties: TOWNSHIP OF MIDLAND, a Municipal Corporation in Midland County, Michigan and Robert B. Chatterton, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. MICHIGAN STATE BOUNDARY COMMISSION, Defendant-Appellant, and City of Midland, Intervening Defendant-Appellee. TOWNSHIP OF MIDLAND, a Municipal Corporation in Midland County, Michigan and Robert B. Chatterton, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. MIDLAND COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, a body corporate, Ben Penner, Midland County Clerk, Germaine A. Smith, Midland Township Clerk, Kenneth W. Lybolt, Clerk of the City of Midland, and City of Midland, a Municipal Corporation, Defendants-Appellees. TOWNSHIP OF NOVI, Plaintiff-Appellee, and W. B. Chase and Chase Manor Farms, Inc., a Michigan Corporation, and Mary Ann Orderman, Intervening Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. STATE of Michigan, DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY, State Boundary Commission, Defendant-Appellant, and City of Novi, a Municipal Corporation, Intervening Defendant-Appellee, and Gregory I. Donovan et al., Intervening Defendants. TOWNSHIP OF NOVI, Plaintiff-Appellee, and W. B. Chase and Chase Manor Farms, Inc., a Michigan Corporation, and Mary Ann Orderman, Intervening Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. STATE of Michigan, DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY, State Boundary Commission, Defendant-Appellant, and City of Novi, a Municipal Corporation, and Gregory I. Donovan et al., Intervening Defendants. TOWNSHIP OF NOVI, Plaintiff-Appellee, and W. B. Chase and Chase Manor Farms, Inc., a Michigan Corporation, and Mary Ann Orderman, Intervening Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. STATE of Michigan, DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY, State Boundary Commission, Defendant, and City of Novi, a Municipal Corporation, Intervening Defendant-Appellant, and Gregory I. Donovan et al, Intervening Defendants. TOWNSHIP OF BRIGHTON, a Municipal Corporation in Livingston County, Michigan, and Muriel Beurmann, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. MICHIGAN STATE BOUNDARY COMMISSION, Defendant-Appellant, and City of Brighton, a Michigan Municipal Corporation, Intervening Defendant- Appellee

Page 326

259 N.W.2d 326

401 Mich. 641

TOWNSHIP OF MIDLAND, a Municipal Corporation in Midland

County, Michigan and Robert B. Chatterton, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. MICHIGAN STATE BOUNDARY COMMISSION, Defendant-Appellant, and City of Midland, Intervening Defendant-Appellee.

TOWNSHIP OF MIDLAND, a Municipal Corporation in Midland

County, Michigan and Robert B. Chatterton, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. MIDLAND COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, a body corporate, Ben

Penner, Midland County Clerk, Germaine A. Smith, Midland

Township Clerk, Kenneth W. Lybolt, Clerk of the City of

Midland, and City of Midland, a Municipal Corporation,

Defendants-Appellees.

TOWNSHIP OF NOVI, Plaintiff-Appellee,

and

W. B. Chase and Chase Manor Farms, Inc., a Michigan

Corporation, and Mary Ann Orderman, Intervening Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. STATE of Michigan, DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY, State Boundary

Commission, Defendant-Appellant,

and

City of Novi, a Municipal Corporation, Intervening Defendant-Appellee,

and

Gregory I. Donovan et al., Intervening Defendants.

TOWNSHIP OF NOVI, Plaintiff-Appellee,

and

W. B. Chase and Chase Manor Farms, Inc., a Michigan

Corporation, and Mary Ann Orderman, Intervening Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. STATE of Michigan, DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY, State Boundary

Commission, Defendant-Appellant,

and

City of Novi, a Municipal Corporation, and Gregory I.

Donovan et al., Intervening Defendants.

TOWNSHIP OF NOVI, Plaintiff-Appellee,

and

W. B. Chase and Chase Manor Farms, Inc., a Michigan

Corporation, and Mary Ann Orderman, Intervening Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. STATE of Michigan, DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY, State Boundary

Commission, Defendant,

and

City of Novi, a Municipal Corporation, Intervening Defendant-Appellant,

and

Gregory I. Donovan et al, Intervening Defendants.

TOWNSHIP OF BRIGHTON, a Municipal Corporation in Livingston

County, Michigan, and Muriel Beurmann, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. MICHIGAN STATE BOUNDARY COMMISSION, Defendant-Appellant, and City of Brighton, a Michigan Municipal Corporation,

Intervening Defendant- Appellee,

and

Group Building Company, a Michigan Corporation, Travelier,

Inc., a Michigan Corporation, Macati Investment

Company, a Michigan Corporation,

Intervening Defendants.

TOWNSHIP OF BRIGHTON, a Municipal Corporation in Livingston

County, Michigan, and Muriel Beurmann, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. MICHIGAN STATE BOUNDARY COMMISSION, Defendant-Appellant, and City of Brighton, a Michigan Municipal Corporation, Group

Building Company, a Michigan Corporation, Travelier, Inc., a

Michigan Corporation, Macati Investment Company, a Michigan

Corporation, Intervening Defendants.

TOWNSHIP OF BRIGHTON, a Municipal Corporation in Livingston

County, Michigan, and Muriel Beurmann, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. MICHIGAN STATE BOUNDARY COMMISSION, Defendant, and City of Brighton, a Michigan Municipal Corporation,

Intervening Defendant- Appellant,

and

Group Building Company, a Michigan Corporation, Travelier,

Inc., a Michigan Corporation, Macati Investment

Company, a Michigan Corporation,

Intervening Defendants.

Nos. 1-6, June Term.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Oct. 24, 1977.

Bauckham, Reed, Lang, Schaefer & Travis by John H. Bauckham, Robert F. Travis, Kalamazoo, for appellees and cross-appellant.

William D. Sinclair, Midland, co-counsel for appellee and cross-appellant Tp. of Midland.

Charles S. Toy, Hartland, co-counsel for appellee and cross-appellant Tp. of Brighton.

David S. DeWitt, Midland, for Kenneth W. Lybolt and City of Midland, defendants-appellees.

Edward G. Durance, Midland, for Midland County Bd. of Com'rs and Ben Bonn, defendants-appellees.

Louis C. Andrews, Jr., Ann Arbor, for City of Midland.

Frank J. Kelley, Atty. Gen., Robert A. Derengoski, Sol. Gen., Milton I. Firestone, Craig Atchinson, Asst. Attys. Gen., for the Michigan State Boundary Com'n.

David S. DeWitt, Midland, for the City of Midland.

Louis C. Andrews, Jr., Ann Arbor, John R. Brennan, Brighton, for the City of Brighton.

David M. Fried, Southfield, for City of Novi.

John H. Bauckham, Kalamazoo, for Tp. of Midland, the Tp. of Novi, and the Tp. of Brighton.

William D. Sinclair, Midland, for the Tp. of Midland.

Charles S. Toy, Hartland, for the Tp. of Brighton.

Lampert & Fried by David M. Fried, Gary E. Levitt, Southfield, for intervening defendant-appellant, cross-appellee, City of Novi.

John R. Brennan, City Atty., Brighton, and Louis C. Andrews, Jr., Ann Arbor, for City of Brighton.

LEVIN, Justice.

The State Boundary Commission was created to consider petitions for the incorporation and consolidation of cities and villages. Its powers were subsequently enlarged to include petitions for annexation of territory to a city.

In these actions, consolidated on appeal, townships from which the Commission ordered territory detached and annexed to adjoining cities and persons residing in those townships challenge the constitutionality of the enabling legislation.

Court of Appeals panels, affirming judgments of the circuit courts, held the enabling legislation to be violative of the Title-Object and Reenact-Publish Clauses of the constitution, but disallowed the other constitutional, procedural and substantive challenges of the townships. We reverse.

The enabling legislation is constitutional. ¹ We agree with the Court of Appeals that the other challenges should be denied except that the Commission's adoption of an erroneous principle in the Novi annexation requires remand to it of the petition in that case.

After the circuit court had set aside the Midland annexation ordered by the Commission, the annexation procedures of prior law were invoked. Midland Township then challenged annexation under those procedures; the circuit court rejected that challenge and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The issues raised in that challenge need not be further considered because the enabling legislation (here held to be constitutional) by its terms supersedes the procedures of prior law.

I

Before creation of the State Boundary Commission, the procedures for the incorporation, consolidation or alteration of boundaries of cities were set forth in the Home Rule Cities Act. ² By enactment separate from that act, the Commission was created in 1968 with authority limited to incorporation and consolidation of cities and villages. ³ The powers of the Commission were extended to annexations by a 1970 amendment of the annexation procedures of the Home Rule Cities Act. ⁴

The 1970 amendment is entitled: "AN ACT to amend section 9 of (the Home Rule Cities Act), entitled as amended 'An act to provide for the incorporation of cities and for revising and amending their charters.' "

In holding the 1970 amendment violative of the Title-Object Clause, the Court of Appeals reasoned that while the title of the Home Rule Cities Act "is sufficient to encompass the annexation authority of cities" it was not "sufficient to encompass the subject of the annexation jurisdiction of an entirely separate state agency." ⁵

A

The Title-Object Clause provides:

"No law shall embrace more than one object, which shall be expressed in its title. No bill shall be altered or amended on its passage through either house so as to change its original purpose as determined by its total content and not alone by its title." Const. 1963, art. 4, § 24.

The question whether the title of the Home Rule Cities Act is sufficient to encompass annexation procedures was resolved in Village of Kingsford v. Cudlip, 258 Mich. 144, 241 N.W. 893 (1932), where this Court considered the question in the context of annexation of township territory to a village under a village governance act. ⁶ The Court observed that the title of the Home Rule Cities Act and the village act were identical except that one speaks of the incorporation of "cities" and the other of "villages" and declared:

"Both of these acts have been many times before this court, and, so far as we have been able to discover, this is the first time the sufficiency of the present titles has been assailed. Both the legislature and the courts have treated these titles as sufficient to sustain the provisions for change of boundaries. The necessity of such changes from time to time is apparent, and in our opinion the power conferred upon the legislature by the Constitution to 'provide by a general law for the incorporation' may fairly be said to include the change of boundaries when needed." Id., 151-152, 241 N.W. at 895. ⁷

Village of Kingsford was followed in Hall v. Calhoun County Board of Supervisors, 373 Mich. 642, 130 N.W.2d 414 (1964), approving annexation pursuant to the procedures of the Home Rule Cities Act of one city by another against a contention that "this would amount to a disincorporation of the annexed city, and the title of (the Home Rules Cities Act) has reference to the incorporation only":

"We have said that the act's title is broad enough to encompass annexation, Village of Kingsford v. Cudlip, 258 Mich. 144, 151, 152, 241 N.W. 893, and this being so we are not prepared to say that it is not broad enough to encompass annexation of a city. We are committed to a liberal interpretation of the constitutional provision concerning titles of legislative enactments." Id., p. 648, 130 N.W.2d p. 417.

Acknowledging that Village of Kingsford and Hall establish that the title of the Home Rule Cities Act is sufficient to encompass annexation procedures, the townships contend that those cases have been superseded by Alan v. Wayne County, 388 Mich. 210, 200 N.W.2d 628, 67 A.L.R.3d 1079 (1972), where this Court declared that if it were intended by the Building Authority Act, ⁸ as amended, "as defendants claim, to permit taxation without limitation to pay fixed rentals, then (the body of that act) exceeds the scope of the title," because the title of that act limits the body to "the issuance of revenue bonds by such authorities." Id., pp. 257, 358, 200 N.W.2d pp. 651, 700.

The Title-Object issue in Alan was different from the issue here...