Opinion
Docket No. 103854.
Decided February 28, 1989. Leave to appeal denied, 433 Mich. 875.
Murray Pawlowski (by George E. Pawlowski and Steven L. Maas), for plaintiff.
Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Louis J. Caruso, Solicitor General, and Thomas J. Emery and Michael C. McDaniel, Assistant Attorneys General, for defendant.
Plaintiff appeals as of right from a circuit court order granting summary disposition in favor of defendant. We affirm.
Because plaintiff's issues concerning collateral estoppel, laches, adverse possession and perfection of title were not addressed by the trial court, we do not address them on appeal. Joe Dwyer, Inc v Jaguar Cars, Inc, 167 Mich. App. 672, 685; 423 N.W.2d 311 (1988).
We disagree with plaintiff's argument that the trial court erroneously granted summary disposition on the basis that plaintiff's suit was barred by the statute of limitations. Under current Michigan law it is true that notice of a tax sale is constitutionally defective if merely given by publication in the county where the property is situated and that tax deeds issuing from defective tax sales are deemed void. Dow v Michigan, 396 Mich. 192, 208-212; 240 N.W.2d 450 (1976); Detroit v John J Blake Realty Co, 144 Mich. App. 432, 437; 376 N.W.2d 114 (1984). However, this was not so at the time of sale to the State of Michigan, and the county-publication notice procedures then in use were subsequently validated by the Michigan Supreme Court in Golden v Auditor General, 373 Mich. 664; 131 N.W.2d 55 (1964).
The land at issue was sold for unpaid property taxes in 1940 and purchased by the State of Michigan in 1942. The state complied with existing procedures for the tax sales, which procedures were deemed proper until Golden, supra was overruled by Dow, supra, some thirty-four years after the tax sales occurred. Because the tax deeds of 1942 were prima facie valid, the ten-year limitation period began running at that time. MCL 600.5801; MSA 27A.5801. See also Fitschen v Olson, 155 Mich. 320, 323-324; 119 N.W. 3 (1909). Upon completion of the ten-year period, the state's title was no longer open to question. See Toll v Wright, 37 Mich. 93 (1877).
Michigan favors only limited retroactivity when overruling prior law, the retroactive effect of a decision generally being limited to parties before the court and to pending cases. Tebo v Havlik, 418 Mich. 350, 360-361; 343 N.W.2d 181 (1984), reh den 419 Mich. 1201 (1984). See also Moody, Retroactive Application of Law-Changing Decisions in Michigan, 28 Wayne Law Review 439, 508 (1982). Reliance on an old rule, as occurred here, is a strong factor favoring limited retroactivity of an overruling decision. 418 Mich. 362-363. In light of the state's proper application of existing notice procedures, exhaustion of the limitation period in 1952, and the Michigan Supreme Court's declaration of procedural validity in 1964, it would be unreasonable to retroactively apply the later ruling in Dow, supra, some thirty-four years after the fact of a valid sale, twenty-four years after the limitations period had run, and twelve years after the declaration of procedural validity.
Therefore we find that the trial court properly granted defendant's motion for summary disposition on grounds that plaintiff's action was barred by the statute of limitations, MCL 600.5801; MSA 27A.5801. MCR 2.116(C)(7).
Affirmed.