De Vries v. Alger

• Decision Date: 05 December 1950
• Docket Number: No. 200,200
• Parties: DE VRIES v. ALGER, Secretary of State. Motion
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 872

44 N.W.2d 872

329 Mich. 68

DE VRIES v. ALGER, Secretary of State.

Motion No. 200.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Dec. 5, 1950.

Robinson, Robinson & Robinson, Thomas N. Robinson, Benton Harbor, for petitioner.

Stephen J. Roth, Atty. Gen., Edmund E. Shepherd, Sol. Gen., Lansing, Daniel J. O'Hara, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant.

Before the Entire Bench.

SHARPE, Justice.

Plaintiff, Benjamin DeVries, filed a petition in the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus commanding Fred M. Alger, Jr., Secretary of State, to issue plaintiff a motor vehicle operator's license.

Plaintiff alleges that he is a resident of Grand Rapids; that on the 9th day of November 1939 a default judgment in the amount of $255.80 and costs of $52.90 was taken against him in the superior court of Grand Rapids; that on March 26, 1940, plaintiff was discharged in bankruptcy; that plaintiff's obligation to pay the judgment was terminated by the discharge in bankruptcy; and that on December 28, 1949, plaintiff made an application to defendant for a motor vehicle operator's license which was promptly refused on the grounds that the running of the statute of limitations can in no way be considered as having stayed, satisfied or discharged the judgment and that the State of Michigan does not permit exemption throught a discharge in bankruptcy as a satisfaction of judgment.

Upon the filing of the petition we issued an order to said Fred M. Alger, Jr., Secretary of State, to show cause why mandamus should not be issued. The return to the order to show cause avers that under the so-called financial responsibility act a discharge in bankruptcy is not a satisfaction of judgment and the running of the statute of limitations cannot be considered as having discharged the judgment.

Our original financial responsibility act was P.A.1933, No. 203. Section 3 of this act as then last amended by P.A.1939, No. 216, C.L.Supp.1940, § 4685-53, Stat.Ann. 1940, Cum.Supp. § 9.1543, in effect when the default judgment was entered, provided in part: 'Such operator's license, chauffeur's license, and registration certificates shall remain so suspended and shall not be renewed, nor shall any such license be issued to such person nor shall any motor vehicle be thereafter registered in the name of such person while nay such judgment remains unstayed, unsatisfied and subsisting nor until every such judgment is satisfied or discharged, except by a discharge in bankruptcy, and until the said person gives proof of his ability to respond in damages as required in section 2 of this act, for future accidents: * * *.'

Out present statute dealing with duration of suspension and a discharge in bankrupcty is P.A.1949, No. 300, § 513, Stat.Ann.1949 Cum.Supp. § 9.2213, and provides:

'(a) Such license, registration, and nonresident's operating privilege shall remain so suspended and shall not be renewed, nor shall any such license or registration be thereafter issued in the name of such person, including any such person not previously licensed unless and until such judgment is satisfied in full or to the extent hereinafter provided, and until the said person gives proof of financial responsibility subject to the exception stated in section 515 of this chapter.

'(b) A discharge in bankruptcy following the rendering of any such judgment shall not relieve the judgment debtor from any of the requirements of this chapter.'

Plaintiff urges that section 513 of P.A.1949, No. 300, is unconstitutional in that the Michigan legislature has no power or authority to enact legislation which supersedes and ignores the Federal Bankruptcy Act, 11 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq. Plaintiff also urges that the statute is invalid, either in its enactment, in its construction, or in its application as it does nor accomplish a legitimate police power objective and violates the due process clause of the State and Federal Constitutions. Const.Mich. art. 2, § 16; Const.U.S. Amend. 14.

The long established rule followed by our court in construing a statute is that every reasonable intendment must be resolved in favor of the constitutionality of legislative action, see Johnson v. Commissioner of Agriculture, 314 Mich. 548, 22 N.W.2d 893. In Sears v. Cottrell, 5 Mich. 251, we said:

'No rule of construction is better and authority, than that the acts of a State legislature are to be presumed constitutional until the contrary is shown; and it is only when they manifestly infringe some provision of the Constitution that they can be declared void for that reason. In cases of doubt, every possible presumption, not clearly inconsistent with the language and the subject matter, is to be made in favor of the constitutionality of the act.

'The power of declaring laws unconstitutional should be exercised with extreme caution, and never where serious doubt exists as to the conflict.'

See, also, In re Phillips, 305 Mich. 636, 9 N.W.2d 872.

In construing the 1949 act we have in mind that 'A license to operate a motor vehicle is a privilege granted by the State.' See Larr v. Secretary of State, 317 Mich. 121, 26 N.W.2d 874. In accepting such license one must also accept all reasonable conditions imposed by the State in granting the license, see People v. Thompson, 259 Mich. 109, 242 N.W. 857.

We hold that law in question is not objectionable on the grounds claimed by plaintiff for the reasons stated in Reitz v. Mealey, Commissioner of Motor Vehicles of the State of N. Y., 314 U.S. 33, 62 S.Ct. 24, 26, 86 L.Ed. 21, where similar claims were made as to section 94-b of the New York Vehicle and Traffic...