# Reich v. State Highway Department

> Michigan Supreme Court · February 25, 1972 · 386 Mich. 617

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9721477

## Case

- **Full name:** Reich v. State Highway Department; Knapp v. State Highway Department; Baker v. State Highway Department
- **Court:** Michigan Supreme Court
- **Decided:** February 25, 1972
- **Citations:** 386 Mich. 617; 194 N.W.2d 700; 1972 Mich. LEXIS 207
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Black
- **Judges:** Black, Brennan, Kavanagh, Swainson, Williams, Adams
- **Cited by:** 121 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Red flag:** Abrogated by Rowland v. Washtenaw County Road Commission, 477 Mich. 197 (2007).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 0
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9721477

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that sixty-day notice requirement applicable to claims against only government tortfeasors violated state and federal Equal Protection Clauses
- holding unconstitutional a 60-day notice requirement on plaintiffs suing State or local governmental authorities for negligence

## Opinion text

Black, J.
(concurring specially). In Morgan v McDermott, 382 Mich 333, 356 (1969), Justice Adams wrote succinctly for our 1969 majority:
“The condition of liability is compliance with the 60-day notice requirement. Until it has been fulfilled, there is no liability.”
His opinion for that majority concludes flatly (p 360):
“The 60-day notice requirement is a condition ‘to any liability * # * for damages sustained by any person # * * either to his person or property, by reason of any defective county road, bridge or culvert.’ ”
Now my Brother, ignoring his opinion of Morgan , writes for today’s majority (ante at p 623):
“Contrary to the legislature’s intention to place victims of negligent conduct on equal footing, the notice requirement acts as a special statute of limitations which arbitrarily bars the actions of the victims of governmental negligence after only 60 days.”
*625 I suggest with utmost deference that Morgan’s error should be acknowledged manfully and then publicly buried. Does not the Court owe such a duty to Michigan’s trial bench and Bar?
In Morgan Justice Dethmers and I, dissenting, concluded as the Court now does for these cases of Reich et al., namely, that our there considered 60-day notice statute (MCLA 224.21; MSA 9.121), “providing liability as well as right of suit, sets forth a short—very short—time limitation against the liability which accrues when the duty imposed thereby is breached.” (P 378.) Reiterating this for direct application to the instant cases, I concur in the result ordered by our current majority.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9721477. Public record. Not legal advice.