Levin, J.
The question is whether the trial court correctly ruled that the plaintiffs, Scott Ortman and Barry Ford, were not residents of Michigan when they suffered injuries in an automobile accident alleged to have been caused by an uninsured motorist,
defendant Todd B. Miller, and, hence, may not recover from the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fnnd.
The act provides:
“The secretary shall not pay out of the fund any amount in favor of a person who resides outside of this state unless the person resides in a jurisdiction in which recourse of a substantially similar character to that provided by this act is afforded to residents of this state, hut no payment shall include an amount that would not be payable by the law of the jurisdiction in which the person resides.”
We hold that the plaintiffs, who, at the time of the accident, were serving in the United States Air Force and were stationed at Selfridge Air Force Base, Mt. Clemens, were residents of Michigan within the meaning of this statutory provision, and, accordingly, we remand for trial of their claims against Miller.
The automobile accident occurred on March 31, 1966. Ford was driving Ortman’s automobile and Ortman was a passenger. Their automobile collided with an automobile being driven by defendant Miller. Separate actions were commenced by Ortman and Ford against Miller. The actions were consolidated for trial, and the Secretary of State intervened as a party defendant.
Ortman was born in California and Ford in North Carolina. They both resided in the states of their birth until they were inducted into the armed forces. At the time of the accident both Ortman and Ford were minors. Ortman was within three weeks of
his 21st birthday and Ford was within four months of his 20th birthday. We were advised during oral argument
that they had been living in Michigan for about five months before the accident. A few months after the accident, Ortman married a Michigan resident and he lived with her off the base in Mt. Clemens until his discharge from the Air Force. Thereafter, for some undisclosed period of time, he remained in Mt. Clemens where he obtained private employment. Subsequently, he moved out of the state. Seven months after the accident, Ford married a North Carolina resident and returned with his bride to Mt. Clemens where he resided off the base until he was transferred by the Air Force to a base out of the state. The record does not disclose for how long after the accident either Ortman or Ford continued to live in Michigan.
Ortman’s automobile, the automobile involved in the accident, was registered in Michigan, and, as an insured motorist, he had paid $1 to the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund when he purchased Michigan license plates for the vehicle.
The act provides that “residence shall be determined as of the date of the motor vehicle accident as a result of which the damages are claimed”.
The terms “residence” and “resident” have no fixed meaning in the law. They have variable meanings depending on the context in which the words are used and the subject matter:
“ ‘Resident’ has no technical meaning, and no fixed meaning applicable to all cases, but rather it has many meanings, and is used in different and various senses, and it has received various interpretations by the courts. Generally the construction or sig
nification of the term is governed by the connection in which it is used, and depends on the context, the subject matter, and the object, purpose, or result designed to be accomplished by its use, and its meaning is to be determined from the facts and circumstances taken together in each particular case.”
Thus, in
School District No. 1, Fractional, of the Township of Mancelona
v.
School District No. 1 of Township of Custer
(1926), 236 Mich 677, 681, the Michigan Supreme Court, while acknowledging that “the word ‘residence’ as used in statutes relating to voting, eligibility to hold office, taxation, probate and administration of estates, etc., is synonymous with domicile”, ruled that, for the purpose of determining entitlement to public school privileges, children reside in a district in which their father has acquired a home in good faith. Accordingly, even though the father of the children in question owned a farm in the defendant district, continued to vote in that district, and intended to return there, his children were residents of the plaintiff district where he had acquired a home convenient to his employment and where he had lived with them for nearly two years at the time of the action. The residence in the plaintiff school district was, said the Court, “a residence acquired in good faith. [The father] did not move there for the better school advantages which the plaintiff could give his children. He went there for business reasons.”
In
Collins
v.
Yancey
(1959), 55 NJ Super 514, 522 (151 A2d 68, 73), the Superior Court of New Jersey, after consideration of the objectives of its Unsatis
fled Claim and Judgment Fund Law, ruled that a person who was employed as a cook in a diner for approximately five months before he was injured by an uninsured motorist and who had moved all his possessions to New Jersey at the time of the commencement of his employment and occupied a rented room and ate his meals in the diner, was a quali.fied resident of New Jersey within the meaning of the law, even though, shortly after the accident, he left New Jersey to return to his sister’s home (a place where he had lived shortly before entering the State) to recuperate, where he remained. His- New Jersey residence, said the Court, “had that permanency which qualifies him for the recourse contemplated by the statute”.
In the subsequent case of
Williamson
v.
Potter
(1963), 80 NJ Super 517, 522 (194 A2d 261, 263), the Court held that a member of the armed forces who had been stationed in the State of Washington and who was transferred to Fort Monmouth about five months before he was killed by an uninsured motorist and who at the time of his death was endeavoring to find living quarters off the base for his wife and two children, who were then residing temporarily with her parents outside the State, had become a resident of New Jersey within the meaning of the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Law. There was, said the Court, “a degree of permanence that clearly brings him within the purview of being a resident of this state” within the meaning of the law.
In
Catalanotto
v.
Palazzolo
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Levin, J.
The question is whether the trial court correctly ruled that the plaintiffs, Scott Ortman and Barry Ford, were not residents of Michigan when they suffered injuries in an automobile accident alleged to have been caused by an uninsured motorist,
defendant Todd B. Miller, and, hence, may not recover from the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fnnd.
The act provides:
“The secretary shall not pay out of the fund any amount in favor of a person who resides outside of this state unless the person resides in a jurisdiction in which recourse of a substantially similar character to that provided by this act is afforded to residents of this state, hut no payment shall include an amount that would not be payable by the law of the jurisdiction in which the person resides.”
We hold that the plaintiffs, who, at the time of the accident, were serving in the United States Air Force and were stationed at Selfridge Air Force Base, Mt. Clemens, were residents of Michigan within the meaning of this statutory provision, and, accordingly, we remand for trial of their claims against Miller.
The automobile accident occurred on March 31, 1966. Ford was driving Ortman’s automobile and Ortman was a passenger. Their automobile collided with an automobile being driven by defendant Miller. Separate actions were commenced by Ortman and Ford against Miller. The actions were consolidated for trial, and the Secretary of State intervened as a party defendant.
Ortman was born in California and Ford in North Carolina. They both resided in the states of their birth until they were inducted into the armed forces. At the time of the accident both Ortman and Ford were minors. Ortman was within three weeks of
his 21st birthday and Ford was within four months of his 20th birthday. We were advised during oral argument
that they had been living in Michigan for about five months before the accident. A few months after the accident, Ortman married a Michigan resident and he lived with her off the base in Mt. Clemens until his discharge from the Air Force. Thereafter, for some undisclosed period of time, he remained in Mt. Clemens where he obtained private employment. Subsequently, he moved out of the state. Seven months after the accident, Ford married a North Carolina resident and returned with his bride to Mt. Clemens where he resided off the base until he was transferred by the Air Force to a base out of the state. The record does not disclose for how long after the accident either Ortman or Ford continued to live in Michigan.
Ortman’s automobile, the automobile involved in the accident, was registered in Michigan, and, as an insured motorist, he had paid $1 to the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund when he purchased Michigan license plates for the vehicle.
The act provides that “residence shall be determined as of the date of the motor vehicle accident as a result of which the damages are claimed”.
The terms “residence” and “resident” have no fixed meaning in the law. They have variable meanings depending on the context in which the words are used and the subject matter:
“ ‘Resident’ has no technical meaning, and no fixed meaning applicable to all cases, but rather it has many meanings, and is used in different and various senses, and it has received various interpretations by the courts. Generally the construction or sig
nification of the term is governed by the connection in which it is used, and depends on the context, the subject matter, and the object, purpose, or result designed to be accomplished by its use, and its meaning is to be determined from the facts and circumstances taken together in each particular case.”
Thus, in
School District No. 1, Fractional, of the Township of Mancelona
v.
School District No. 1 of Township of Custer
(1926), 236 Mich 677, 681, the Michigan Supreme Court, while acknowledging that “the word ‘residence’ as used in statutes relating to voting, eligibility to hold office, taxation, probate and administration of estates, etc., is synonymous with domicile”, ruled that, for the purpose of determining entitlement to public school privileges, children reside in a district in which their father has acquired a home in good faith. Accordingly, even though the father of the children in question owned a farm in the defendant district, continued to vote in that district, and intended to return there, his children were residents of the plaintiff district where he had acquired a home convenient to his employment and where he had lived with them for nearly two years at the time of the action. The residence in the plaintiff school district was, said the Court, “a residence acquired in good faith. [The father] did not move there for the better school advantages which the plaintiff could give his children. He went there for business reasons.”
In
Collins
v.
Yancey
(1959), 55 NJ Super 514, 522 (151 A2d 68, 73), the Superior Court of New Jersey, after consideration of the objectives of its Unsatis
fled Claim and Judgment Fund Law, ruled that a person who was employed as a cook in a diner for approximately five months before he was injured by an uninsured motorist and who had moved all his possessions to New Jersey at the time of the commencement of his employment and occupied a rented room and ate his meals in the diner, was a quali.fied resident of New Jersey within the meaning of the law, even though, shortly after the accident, he left New Jersey to return to his sister’s home (a place where he had lived shortly before entering the State) to recuperate, where he remained. His- New Jersey residence, said the Court, “had that permanency which qualifies him for the recourse contemplated by the statute”.
In the subsequent case of
Williamson
v.
Potter
(1963), 80 NJ Super 517, 522 (194 A2d 261, 263), the Court held that a member of the armed forces who had been stationed in the State of Washington and who was transferred to Fort Monmouth about five months before he was killed by an uninsured motorist and who at the time of his death was endeavoring to find living quarters off the base for his wife and two children, who were then residing temporarily with her parents outside the State, had become a resident of New Jersey within the meaning of the Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund Law. There was, said the Court, “a degree of permanence that clearly brings him within the purview of being a resident of this state” within the meaning of the law.
In
Catalanotto
v.
Palazzolo
(1965), 46 Misc 2d 381 (259 NYS2d 473), a New York trial court held that an alien, who was illegally in the country, But who had lived in New York for almost one year before he was injured in an automobile accident and who had held various jobs within the State and was a member of a union in New York City was a “resident” of New York State within the meaning of a New York statute providing indemnification for persons injured by uninsured motorists.
We have considered the Maryland cases
which equate residence with domicile and are of the opinion that they take an unduly restrictive view inconsistent with the intendment of our Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Act.
In
Douglas
v.
New York, N. H. & H. R. Co.
(1929), 279 US 377, 386 (49 S Ct 355, 356, 73 L Ed 747, 751), a New York statute limiting access to its courts by nonresidents was challenged on the ground that it violated the provision of the Federal Constitution securing to the citizens of each state the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. The Court responded:
“But however often the word resident may have been used as equivalent to citizen, and for whatever purposes residence may have been assumed to follow citizenship there is nothing to prohibit the legislature from using ‘resident’ in the
strict primary sense of one actually living in the place for the time,
irrespective even of domicile. If that word in this statute must be so construed in order to uphold the act or even to avoid serious doubts of its constitutionality we presume that the Courts of New York would construe it in that way; as indeed the Supreme Court has done already in so many words.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The implication is that while “citizenship”, “domicile”, and “residence” are frequently used interchangeably and are sometimes said to be synonymous,
it frequently is necessary to distinguish between the terms.
We are persuaded that our Legislature did not use the word “residence” in this context in a narrow or restrictive sense. The exclusion of nonresidents from the protection of the act was meant to exclude residents of other states whose relationship to Michigan is transitory and lacks any degree of permanence. Ortman’s and Ford’s employment had taken them to Michigan and at the time of the accident their actual place of abode was Michigan. They had
been here for a substantial period of time and when they entered Michigan they did so without formulated plans to leave shortly thereafter. They were, we are convinced, residents of Michigan within the intendment of the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Act.
While the residence of an infant quite naturally follows that of parents having custody, on the same principle that a child is emancipated from his parents when he marries,
his induction into the armed forces,
with or without the consent of his parents, at least where it is according to law, should be deemed to emancipate him. See PA 1968, No 293, which adds the authority of statutory law by providing that emancipation occurs by operation of law during the period when a minor is on active duty with the armed forces of the United States.
Ortman’s and Ford’s minority did not bar them from becoming residents of Michigan.
Eeversed and remanded for trial. Costs to abide the event.
All concurred.