OF KREINER FIXES AND RACCOON HUNTING

The bill to address the injustices done to Michigan auto accident victims since our Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Kreiner v Fisher held that negligent drivers were not responsible to their victims unless the injuries caused truly life-altering, languishes in Senate committee. What has been called the “Kreiner Fix” bill was passed by the Michigan House in February, 2007, but there has been no action since it was sent on to the Senate. To be honest, a large part of the reason for this is that Senate Republicans do not want to see any change to the current, Supreme Court imposed set-up that institutionalizes Insurance company profits at the expense of the injured citizens of Michigan. Given the fine job the Courts are doing acting as the guardians of negligent corporations, property owners, and drivers (drunk and otherwise), one might ask why any person or any company wastes its hard-earned money buying liability insurance at all. Sort of like Superman buying life insurance after all the galaxy’s green kryptonite has been destroyed. (Even so, the Metropolis Mutual Life Insurance Company keeps raising his rates.)

Maybe I am being a little hard on the Michigan Senate. Maybe, they have just been busy lately, with the budget and such like. Things are tough in this state right now. Auto jobs are being lost forever, and we need to train our youth to lead the state to develop new industries. It is hard to do this while state supported universities impose double digit tuition increases on Michigan students and families. It is difficult to lead Michigan out of our “one state recession” while raising taxes to balance the state budgets. There are no easy solutions. Maybe our Senators just don’t have the time to deal with such minor issues as seriously injured persons left without legal remedies. I am sure that there are a lot of things our busy legislature just doesn’t have the time or the resources to get to. They are busy folks.

I had been willing, grudgingly, to give them the benefit of the doubt. Until last week. The deposition of my client was being taken in an injury case. One of the rapidly decreasing number of “gentleman farmers” in southern Oakland County, this man derived income from a variety of different activities. In the course of his testimony, he surprised me by mentioning one we had not previously discussed. Raccoon hunting (my words, not his). My first mental image was of the intro to the “Beverly Hillbillies”. Income from that? He couldn’t be serious. But he was. Though he generated less that a thousand dollars (a lot less) a year from this endeavor, he said that there were a great many state laws and regulations governing this activity. He was right. I found that the state sets a raccoon hunting season, a raccoon trapping season, and sets zones for raccoon trapping. Michigan has rules governing night-time raccoon hunting, bow raccoon hunting, and the kind of artificial light that can be used in raccoon hunting. The state sets rules as to when dogs can be used in raccoon hunting and what kind of firearms can be used in raccoon hunting. In one section, the following rule is set forth regarding legal hunting during open season (as opposed to raccoon damage control hunting season): “With dogs only. Firearm must be unloaded and arrows un-nocked except when taking raccoon in tree.” I have no idea what that means.

If those rules were not enough, there are additional rules and regulations regarding the taking of raccoon fur, and seasons established for that. There are fur-harvesting licenses required and dates by which furs taken must be disposed of. There is also a list of state approved fur buyers. And here I always thought all raccoon population control was done by suburban and rural motorists. By the way a listing of these rules can be found at: http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10363_10880_10998-174436--,00.html The rules listed there are by no means comprehensive.

Now it seems to me if the great state of Michigan can devote that kind of time and energy to the leagal ordering of the slaughter of the lowly raccoon, then there is really no earthly reason why it should not be able to get to the issue of giving relief to the wrongly injured citizens of this state. If our legislators don’t do so soon, many citizens may be well advised to learn the rules of raccoon hunting. After all, the animal can provide both income-producing fur, and cheap food for the family table.
So, Senator Bishop, please consider bringing the Kreiner fix bill to the floor of the Senate for some of that good old fashioned, negotiation, debate, and dare I hope, voting, I like to call the legislative process. That is, unless you are too busy revising the Michigan muskrat shearing regulations.

Comments

[Billy Ray]

What you got against Coon huntin?

[Attorneybutler]

Nothing at all. I just think that the citizens of the State of Michigan will not be able to make a living at raccoon hunting, and feed their families with raccoon meat at the same time. I don't think the state has that many raccoons.