Moreton v. Haggerty

• Decision Date: 01 December 1927
• Docket Number: Motion No. 456.,No. 139,139
• Citation: 216 N.W. 450,240 Mich. 584
• Parties: MORETON et al. v. HAGGERTY, Secretary of State. DETROIT AUTOMOBILE CLUB et al. v. SAME. READING et al. v. SAME.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

240 Mich. 584

216 N.W. 450

MORETON et al.

v.HAGGERTY, Secretary of State.

DETROIT AUTOMOBILE CLUB et al.

v.SAME.

READING et al.

v.SAME.

No. 139; Motion No. 456.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Dec. 1, 1927.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Wayne County, in Chancery; Guy A. Miller, Judge.

Suit by E. Foster Moreton and others against John S. Haggerty, Secretary of State. Judgment for plaintiffs, and defendant appeals. Appeal consolidated with separate original mandamus proceedings by the Detroit Automobile Club and others, and by Richard W. Reading and others, against John S. Haggerty, Secretary of State. Decree of lower court reversed, and mandamus denied.

Argued before the Entire Bench. William W. Potter, Atty. Gen., Harry A. Metcalf and M. M. Larmonth, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellant.

H. E. Spalding and Joseph H. Clark, both of Detroit, for appellees.

B. D. Chandler, of Hudson, and Retan, Benjamin & Quay, of Detroit (Clare Retan, of Detroit, of counsel), for plaintiffs Automobile Club and others.

Emmons, Klein, Ferris & Cook and Joseph H. Clark, all of Detroit, for plaintiffs Reading and others.

McDONALD, J.

These three causes have been consolidated, and will be disposed of in one opinion. The first is an injunction suit brought in the Wayne circuit court to restrain the secretary of state from collecting the gasoline privilege tax authorized by Act 150 of the Public Acts of 1927. The second is a mandamus proceeding to compel the secretary of state to accept and file a referendum petition for the approval or rejection by the people of the sections 2, 8, and 22 of said act; and the third cause is like unto the second, except that its purpose is a referendum on the entire act.

The theory of the bill of complaint in the injunction suit is that the act is unconstitutional, for reasons that we shall presently mention. The applicable portions of the act read as follows:

‘Sec. 19. All sums of money received and collected by the secretary of state under the provisions of this act, except the license fees provided herein, shall be deposited in the state treasury to the credit of the state highway fund, and after the payment of the necessary expenses incurred in the enforcement of this act, are hereby appropriated from the state highway fund for the calendar year ending December thirty-one, nineteen hundred twenty-seven, and for each calendar year thereafter, for the specific purposes and in the amounts set forth in the following schedule:

‘(a) To meet deficiencies in appropriations for the payment of net amounts owing the several counties and townships on state award highways as follows: The total amounts due and to become due the several townships to be paid on the first day of April, nineteen hundred twenty-eight, and on the first day of April each year thereafter; two million dollars to be paid to the several counties, payable one million dollars on February one, nineteen hundred twenty-eight, and one million dollars on April one, nineteen hundred twenty-eight, and on the same dates in each year thereafter until such awards have been paid;

‘(b) For the payment of interest on state highway bonds and on the principal thereof, not less than three million dollars;

‘(c) A sum equal to the difference between six million dollars and fifty per cent. of the total weight tax collected under the provisions of act number three hundred two of the public acts of nineteen hundred fifteen, as amended, shall belong to the several counties of the state; seven-eighths of a sum equal to one-half of the total weight tax shall be paid to the several county treasurers in proportion to the amount of said weight tax received from the owners of registered vehicles within the several counties under the provisions of said act number three hundred two of the public acts of nineteen hundred fifteen, as amended; the remaining one-eighth of said sum shall be paid to the several county treasurers thereof as follows: One-eighty-third to the county treasurer of each county;

‘(c1) A sum equal to two thousand dollars per mile of state trunk line highways, contained within the limits of a city or village, the maintenance of which is an obligation of such city or village, shall be paid to each such city or village annually, on or before August first of each year: Provided, That said highways shall be maintained in a manner satisfactory to the state highway commissioner;

‘(d) The balance, if any, shall be used for the general construction, improvement, betterment and maintenance of the public highways within this state.

‘All appropriations made herein shall be expended under the supervision of the state administrative board, in accordance with the highway laws.’

It is first claimed by the plaintiffs that the act is unconstitutional, because subsections (c) and (c1) of section 19, make appropriations for local purposes, and therefore are in conflict with section 24, art. 5, of the state Constitution, which reads as follows:

‘The assent of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the Legislature shall be requisite to every bill appropriating the public money or property for local or private purposes.’

It is conceded that the act did not receive a two-thirds vote of the members of each house. It follows that, if the appropriations complained of are for local purposes, it is in contravention of the constitutional provision above quoted, and therefore is invalid.

The act is a highway finance measure. It provides that the tax collected shall be deposited to the credit of the state highway fund, and appropriated from that fund for certain purposes, one of which is the payment of specified amounts to the several counties of the state which are to be expended for the construction and maintenance of highways, ‘under the supervision of the state administrative board, in accordance with the highway laws.’ Is this an appropriation for local purposes within the meaning of the Constitution?

In determining this question, it will be helpful to keep in mind the interest which the state at large has in all public roads and the policy which it has adopted in respect to their construction and maintenance. If ever the building and maintenance of highways was a matter of purely local concern, that time passed with the coming of the automobile into general use as a means of transportation. Good roads became economically necessary. To secure them, the old local public road policy was abandoned; and by appropriate legislation there was adopted a complete and comprehensive state-wide system, the basic theory of which is, that a building of a highway in any section of the state is of interest to every other section; that it is a matter of state-wide concern rather than of any particular locality. On at least two previous occasions this court has said:

‘The matter of the improvement or the repair of a road is not one of merely local concern. All of the highway legislation now on the statute books is based on the theory that the entire state is interested.’ Attorney General v. Bruce, 213 Mich. 532, 182 N. W. 155.

‘While yet recognizing local interest in and a reasonable local control over highways, the present constitution makes plain that their...