Background
The dispute concerned a 0.16-mile section of Old Pinckney Road in Marion Township, including about 100 feet crossing 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. After objecting to traffic, JAC and its manager, Aaren Currie, claimed that the road had been abandoned and belonged to them, and 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 and also sought injunctive relief. The circuit court ruled that MCL 224.18 prevented the City from acquiring jurisdiction over a road outside its boundaries, granted defendants judgment on the City’s declaratory claim, and dismissed defendants’ separate injunction count because an injunction is a remedy rather than an independent cause of action.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals held that the Transfer of Jurisdiction Over Highways Act, not MCL 224.18, governed the alleged 2006 transfer from the county road commission to the City. Under Acer Paradise, MCL 224.18 continues to govern transfers from counties to townships, but the Transfer Act governs transfers from counties to cities or villages and supersedes MCL 224.18 in this setting.
The Transfer Act contains no requirement that a transferred highway lie within the receiving city’s corporate boundaries, and the court declined to add one. Because defendants’ declaratory counterclaim depended on inapplicable MCL 224.18, the City was entitled to dismissal of that claim. The City’s allegations of consent, resolutions, and a written transfer agreement stated a viable declaratory claim under the Transfer Act, so the circuit court erred by granting defendants summary disposition on it. The court reversed those rulings and remanded without deciding factual challenges that the circuit court could consider later.
Key Takeaways
- The Transfer Act governs a county road commission’s transfer of highway jurisdiction to a city, while MCL 224.18 governs transfers from a county to a township.
- The Transfer Act does not restrict a city to acquiring jurisdiction only over highways located within its municipal boundaries.
- The ruling preserved the City’s declaratory claim but did not foreclose defendants from raising on remand factual challenges to whether the statutory transfer requirements were satisfied.
Why It Matters
The decision clarifies that Michigan courts may not import MCL 224.18’s geographic limitation into the separate statutory scheme governing transfers from counties to cities. A city therefore may assume jurisdiction over a road segment outside its corporate limits if the Transfer Act’s consent, resolution, and written-agreement requirements are met.
The opinion does not conclusively establish that Howell has jurisdiction over the disputed road. It instead rejects defendants’ statutory theory, reinstates the City’s claim, and leaves the circuit court to address any remaining factual disputes concerning compliance with the Transfer Act.