Sec. 3a. All words and phrases shall be construed and understood according to the common and approved usage of the language; but technical words and phrases, and such as may have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in the law, shall be construed and understood according to such peculiar and appropriate meaning.
Mich. Comp. Laws § 8.3a
Approved usage; technical words and phrases
Applied in 355 court decisions — leading case Robinson v. City of Detroit (2000)
Most recently applied in 326 Mich. App. 561 - People of Michigan v. Keith Eric Wood (December 2018)
Add. 1959, Act 189, Imd
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.