Sec. 15. The construction and maintenance of all such telegraph, telephone and power lines, cable television lines, pipe lines, wires, cables, poles, conduits, sewers and like structures shall be subject to the paramount right of the public to use such public places, roads, bridges and waters, and shall not interfere with other public uses thereof and nothing herein contained shall be construed to authorize any telegraph, telephone, power, or other public utility company, cable television company or municipality to cut, destroy, or in anywise injure any tree or shrub planted within any highway right of way or along the margin thereof, or purposely left there for shade or ornament or to bridge across any of the waters of this state. Nor shall anything in this section or sections 13 and 14 be construed to grant any rights whatsoever to any public utilities or cable television companies whatsoever, nor to impair anywise any existing rights granted in accordance with the constitution or laws of this state, but shall be construed as a regulation of the exercise of all such rights.
Mich. Comp. Laws § 247.185
Paramount rights of public; injury to trees and shrubs; regulation of rights
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case 150 Mich. App. 40 - Detroit Edison Co. v. Township of Richmond (1986)
Most recently applied in 161 Mich. App. 28 - Detroit Edison Co. v. Southeastern Michigan Transportation Authority (June 1987)
1925, Act 368, Eff
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Michigan Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Michigan statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.