Background
The dispute concerns a 0.16-mile section of Old Pinckney Road in Marion Township, approximately 100 feet of which crosses property owned by JAC Enterprises, LLC. The City of Howell alleged that the Livingston County Road Commission transferred jurisdiction over the section to the City in 2006 through resolutions and a written agreement.
After JAC and its manager, Aaren Currie, asserted that the road had been abandoned and belonged to them, they placed a chain across it. The City sued for declaratory relief, public nuisance, and trespass. Defendants counterclaimed for a declaration that MCL 224.18 transferred jurisdiction to Marion Township rather than the City. The circuit court agreed with defendants on that issue, dismissed the City’s declaratory-judgment count, and denied dismissal of defendants’ competing declaratory claim.
The Court’s Holding
The Michigan Court of Appeals held that the Transfer of Jurisdiction Over Highways Act, MCL 247.851 et seq., governs a transfer from a county road commission to a city. MCL 224.18, which generally returns relinquished county roads to the municipality where they are located, did not govern the 2006 transfer because the transferee was a city rather than a township.
The Transfer Act contains no requirement that the transferred road lie within the receiving city’s corporate boundaries. The court therefore refused to import MCL 224.18’s geographic restriction into the Transfer Act and held that the City was entitled to dismissal of defendants’ counterclaim premised on MCL 224.18.
The court also held that the City stated a viable declaratory-judgment claim by alleging that the road commission and the City consented by resolution and memorialized the transfer in writing. It reversed summary disposition for defendants on that claim and remanded for further proceedings, leaving the trial court free to consider defendants’ remaining factual challenges to compliance with the Transfer Act.
Key Takeaways
- The Transfer Act, rather than MCL 224.18, governs a county road commission’s transfer of road jurisdiction to a city.
- The Transfer Act does not restrict transfers to roads located within the receiving city’s municipal boundaries.
- The decision preserves the City’s claim that the 2006 transfer gave it jurisdiction, but it does not finally resolve factual disputes over whether every statutory transfer requirement was satisfied.
Why It Matters
The unpublished decision clarifies that Michigan courts may not import the County Road Law’s location-based restriction into the separate statutory scheme governing consensual transfers from counties to cities. A road’s location outside a city’s boundaries therefore does not, by itself, invalidate such a transfer.
The ruling also illustrates the limited effect of pleading-stage summary disposition: the City’s allegations and attached transfer documents were sufficient to proceed, while factual objections to the transfer may still be litigated on remand.