STATE OF MICHIGAN

FRANK J. KELLEY, ATTORNEY GENERAL

Opinion No. 5633

January 28, 1980

LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS TRAINING COUNCIL:

Reemployment after discontinued service

POLICE:

Training requirement after discontinued service

SHERIFFS:

Compliance by undersheriffs with training requirements of Law Enforcement Officers Training Council Act

WORDS & PHRASES:

'Another'; 'lay-off'

The requirements of Section 9(1)(C) of the Law Enforcement Officers Training Council Act are waived for police officers who have previously completed mandatory training requirements, or have had more than one year's service and leave voluntarily or involuntarily, their police agency employment and return to a police agency within 18 months whether they return to the same or another police agency.

Undersheriffs are not exempt from the training requirements of the Law Enforcement Officers Training Council Act.

A police officer who has been 'laid-off' is deemed to have involuntarily discontinued employment.

Mr. Leslie Van Beveren

Executive Secretary

Department of State Police

Law Enforcement Officers Training Council

7426 North Canal Road

Lansing, Michigan 48913

Your first question seeks an opinion regarding the meaning of the word 'another' in Section 9(1), (d)(ii) and (iii) of The Michigan Law Enforcement Officers Training Council Act of 1965, 1965 PA 203; MCLA 28.609(1)(d)(ii) and (iii); MSA 4.450(a)(1)(d)(ii) and (iii).

Section 9(d) of the Act, allows for a 'waiver' of the requirements of subdivision (c) when a person voluntarily or involuntarily discontinues his or her work as a law enforcement officer, but is re-employed within a specified time, depending on work experience:

The general rule of statutory construction as set forth in the City of Detroit v Tygard, 381 Mich 271, 275; 161 NW2d 1 (1968) is that:

Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged (1967) defines 'another' in this way:

Read literally, subdivision (d)(ii) and (iii) might preclude law enforcement officers having one or more years of experience from returning to their original department.

However, such an interpretation would yield the unreasonable result of allowing officers with less than one year of experience to return to their original employment after discontinuing their work but concomitantly prohibiting officers with more than one year of experience from doing the same thing.

No reasonable state of facts can be advanced to uphold the difference in classification between those officers who go off to work for other departments and those officers who return to the same department after one year's absence. If Section 9(1)(d)(ii) and (iii) were to be given its ordinary meaning, it might be violative of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and Mich Const 1963, art I, Sec. 2. See Naudzius v Lahr, 253 Mich 216, 223; 234 NW 581 (1931).

A duly enacted statute is presumed to be constitutional and must be construed in a constitutional manner if at all possible. Schwartz v Secretary of State, 393 Mich 42, 50; 222 NW2d 517 (1974); People v McQuillan, 392 Mich 511, 536-537; 221 NW2d 569 (1974). Therefore, in order to afford equal protection of the laws, it is necessary to give a constitutional construction of Section 9(1)(d)(ii) and (iii) by permitting a waiver of the requirements in Section 9(1)(c) for police officers who have previously completed their mandatory training requirements, have had more than one year's service and return to a police agency within 18 months whether they return to the same or another police agency.

Your second question requests a determination of whether the appointed undersheriff must comply with the minimum basic training requirements of Section 9 of 1965 PA 203, supra, as amended.

Subdivision (f) specifically exempts sheriffs from having to complete the minimum basic training requirements set by the council. In fact, the sheriff is the only position specifically exempted from these requirements. Regularly employed police officers must, under Section 9(f) of the Act, complete the minimum basic training requirements.

'Police officer' is defined in Section 2(c) of the Act. 1965 PA 203, Sec. 2(c) originally defined police officer as follows:

Since the undersheriff was specifically excluded from the definition of police officer, the undersheriff was exempted from compliance with the minimum basic training requirements in Section 9(f) which applied only to police officers.

The Legislature in 1968, however, amended Section 2(c) of the Act to exclude reference to the 'sheriff and undersheriff':

The Legislature in 1970 PA 187, then amended Sections 9(f) to exclude only the sheriff. Therefore, the history of the Act evinces an intent by the Legislature to exempt only the sheriff and not the undersheriff from compliance with the minimum basic training requirements of Section 9(f). The answer to your second question is that undersheriffs must comply with 1965 PA 203 as amended.

Your last question asks if laid-off police officers are deemed to have involuntarily discontinued their employment as provided for in Section 9(d)(i), (ii), and (iii), supra.

Again, we must look to the general rule of statutory construction that words of a statute are to be taken in their ordinary signification and import. City of Detroit v Tygard, supra.

The definition of 'lay-off' appears in Chrysler Corporation v Washington, 52 Mich App 229, 234; 217 NW2d 66 (1974) as follows:

Here, 'lay-off' is synonymous with an involuntary discontinuance of employment, and the statute as read in its ordinary signification and import would encompass those law enforcement officers laid-off from employment.

Frank J. Kelley