Providing summaries of opinions as they are released from the Michigan Supreme Court, Michigan Court of Appeals (published & unpublished), and selected U.S. Sixth Circuit. Over 60,000 cases summarized to date.
Full Text Opinion
Motion for relief from judgment; MCR 6.508(D); Good cause; MCR 6.508(D)(3)(a); People v Swain; Sufficiency of the evidence; Arson; Valuation of the property; Distinguishing People v Toodle; Attempted murder; People v Long; Intent; People v Love; Attempt; People v Ng; Sentencing; Scoring of OVs 3 & 6; MCL 777.33(1)(d) & 36(1)(a); Ineffective assistance of trial & appellate counsel; People v Trakhtenberg
The court held that there was insufficient evidence to support defendant’s arson conviction, that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to move for a directed verdict on this charge, and that appellate counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the issue on appeal. Thus, it reversed her arson conviction and remanded with instructions to vacate that conviction and enter an acquittal, but affirmed her other convictions. She pled guilty to larceny over $1,000 and less than $20,000, and stealing—financial transaction, and was found guilty after a bench trial of attempted murder and arson—preparation to burn property $20,000 or more. Her convictions arose out of her stealing from her great-grandparents and attempting to set their house on fire. The trial court sentenced her to concurrent prison terms of 3 to 5 years for larceny, 2 to 6 for stealing, 6½ to 10 for arson, and 18 to 40 for attempted murder. On appeal, the court agreed with her that there was no evidence of the value of the house, and that trial and appellate counsel were ineffective in this instance. It rejected the prosecution’s claim “based on Toodle, that it was ‘reasonable for the trial court to infer that a habitable home in Wayne County was worth at least $20,000, especially when defendant never contested that fact.’” It noted that “Toodle is distinguishable because there was evidence on the record in Toodle concerning the value of the total property and the police officer’s testimony to allow the court to ‘draw reasonable inferences from facts of record.’” The trial court was “required to rely on evidence presented in order to make any inferences. Here, there was absolutely no evidence concerning the value of the property. Therefore, there was no evidence from which to infer any value.” However, the court held that the evidence was sufficient to support her attempted murder conviction, noting that if her great-grandmother “had not smelled the lighter fluid, had not awakened and gone into the kitchen, and had not started to call for her husband, defendant presumably would have finished igniting the fluid and likely murdered” them. As to her argument that she was denied a fair trial because the trial court relied on the jury instruction for murder to reach its verdict that she was guilty of attempted murder, the court found that the error was harmless as the judge clarified the issue in her findings. Finally, it rejected her claim that the trial court erred in scoring OVs 3 and 6, finding a preponderance of the evidence supported the scores.
Sentencing; Upward departure from the guidelines; Proportionality; People v Milbourn
Concluding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that defendant’s guidelines range was insufficient because it failed to account for his extensive criminal history and poor rehabilitation potential, the court held that his departure sentences were reasonable. He was convicted of UDAA and possession of less than 25 grams of a controlled substance. He was sentenced as a fourth-offense habitual offender to concurrent terms of 6 to 20 years for UDAA and 6 to 15 years for the drug offense. His minimum guidelines range was 9 to 46 months. The court acknowledged that neither of his “convictions would, standing alone or in combination, justify an upward departure. While the victim was defendant’s mother, defendant returned her vehicle after a few hours, and the drug conviction was not particularly shocking or egregious.” The record showed that the trial court did not rely on the nature of his offenses to justify its departure. However, his background was “extensive, in terms of criminality and lost opportunities.” It was this that troubled the trial court. It “noted that, by age 52, defendant had 26 felony convictions. It pointed out that defendant could have been ‘brought as a habitual 26th’ if the habitual degrees went that high (they do not).” It further noted that he had 15 misdemeanors, only 5 of which were “incorporated into the guidelines calculation. With some exasperation, the trial court concluded, ‘You have a record consisting of 26 felony’s and 15 misdemeanors. The guidelines cannot possibly, accurately, capture that.’” It also highlighted his “poor potential for rehabilitation, as exemplified by defendant’s record of past lapse[.]” The court noted that while the trial court did not offer a long, exhaustive analysis at sentencing, “it was not required to do so.” The court’s review of the record confirmed that he was either “incapable or unwilling to conform his actions to society’s laws, and the upward departures are proportionate for this offender.” Affirmed.
Right to a fair trial; People v Rodriguez; Factual & proximate causation; People v Feezel; People v Schaefer; Intervening & superseding causation; People v Bailey; People v Bergman; Prosecutorial error; People v Dobek; People v Callon; Ineffective assistance of counsel; People v Anderson; Trial strategy; People v Pickens
The court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to give an instruction on intervening, superseding causation, that defendant was not denied a fair trial by certain remarks made by the prosecution, and that he was not denied the effective assistance of counsel. He was convicted of OWI causing death and OWI causing serious impairment of a body function for causing an accident that killed one victim and seriously injured another. On appeal, the court rejected his argument that evidence of a second car colliding with the victims’ car supported a jury instruction on intervening and superseding causation, and that the trial court abused its discretion by denying his request for one. “To warrant this instruction, there must be evidentiary support from which the trier of fact could reasonably conclude that [the] subsequent collision broke the causal link between defendant’s collision and the” victims’ harm. The court found “such evidence lacking in this case.” Because the second “collision was a reasonably foreseeable result of defendant’s collision, it could not legally constitute an intervening cause of” the resulting death and serious injury. As such, the trial court “adequately instructed the jury on the issue of causation when it explained that defendant’s operation of his vehicle must have been both a factual and a proximate cause of” the resulting death and serious injury. The court also rejected his claim that the prosecution impermissibly shifted the burden of proof on the element of intoxication to defendant by encouraging the jury to ask why the defense did not arrange for its own independent testing of defendant’s blood sample, thereby depriving him of a fair trial. “Given the context, the trial court did not err in finding that defense counsel ‘opened the door’ to the challenged rebuttal argument.” Finally, the court rejected his contention that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel by his trial attorney’s failure to investigate the need for, or to retain, an accident reconstruction expert to support his defense that the second collision was an intervening, superseding cause. Defendant “failed to provide any offer of proof to the effect that an expert would have been able to provide favorable testimony to counter the strong evidence indicating that his head-on collision was a proximate cause,” and there was no indication as to “whether, or to what extent, defense counsel investigated the theory of superseding cause, or consulted, or attempted to retain, an accident reconstructionist.” Affirmed.
Divorce; Findings as to the equity in the marital home; Findings as to the value of other property; Judgment of Divorce (JOD)
Holding that the trial court’s factual findings were not supported by the record evidence, and thus could not stand, the court reversed, vacated the portion of the Amended Default JOD ordering defendant-ex-husband pay $3,325 to plaintiff-ex-wife to equalize the marital estate, and remanded for entry of a Second Amended Default JOD. Defendant argued that “the trial court erred by reducing the equity in the marital home by 7%, which would represent a realtor’s commission if the home were to be sold, and by assigning ‘arbitrary’ and ‘speculative’ values to four motor vehicles, a pontoon boat, defendant’s tools, and the furniture inside the marital home.” The court initially noted, and defendant conceded, that the trial court’s initial valuation of the marital home was accurate. But it held that “the trial court erroneously deducted a 7% realtor’s commission on the sale of the home if it were to sell for $135,000.” The commission was $9,450, and reduced the parties’ equity in the home to $19,823.58. The 7% “was based off of plaintiff’s testimony that in [9/17], if plaintiff had been ordered to pay defendant his portion of the home’s equity, she would have been forced to sell the home. However, plaintiff offered no evidence that she was actually planning on selling the home, or that she had even met with a realtor. Moreover, plaintiff offered no evidence to substantiate her position that any realtor would have taken a 7% commission on the sale, if the 7% commission was a standard commission, if the home would be listed at $135,000, or if comparable homes in plaintiff’s area had sold for close to $135,000. Thus, the trial court’s finding that the parties’ equity in the home should be reduced” in this manner was speculative, and inadequate. Using the original, accurate valuation, their joint equity in the home as of 9/17 “was $29,273.58, or $14,636.79 each.” As to the other items, the court held that “where plaintiff failed to provide evidence of the reasonably ascertainable value of the four motor vehicles, the pontoon boat, defendant’s tools, and the furniture inside the marital home, these items of personal property should not have been considered assets with value subject to distribution[.]” This left the home as the only asset of value subject to equitable distribution. Further, “the parties’ shares of the marital estate were equal, and had a value of $14,636.79 each. Therefore, defendant should not be required to pay any monies to plaintiff to equalize the marital estate, as” it was already equal.
Medical malpractice; Two-year limitations period; MCL 600.5805(8); Timeliness under MCL 600.5838a(2); Fraudulent concealment; Fiduciary relationship; Distinguishing In re Estate of Doyle (Unpub); Whether the allegations of fraudulent conduct should have been for the jury to decide
The court held that the facts did not support plaintiffs’ claim of fraudulent concealment in this medical malpractice case. Plaintiff-patient underwent surgery to remove a mass in his bowel. His “discharge summary indicated that the surgery was performed without complication; however,” it later became apparent that a surgical towel was inadvertently left in his abdomen. The court held that while a fiduciary relationship existed between him and defendant-Dr. Heinzelmann, plaintiffs did not provide “factual or legal support for their claim that the remaining defendants were [his] agents or otherwise owed a fiduciary duty to plaintiff.” Thus, the court deemed this aspect of plaintiffs’ argument abandoned. In addition, it held that they “failed to present facts establishing fraudulent conduct by any” defendant. The record reflected that “no one on the surgical team, including Dr. Heinzelmann, knew that a blue towel had gone missing during plaintiff’s surgery, or that a blue towel was retained inside his body. Absent the requisite knowledge about the retained towel, the fiduciary exception to fraudulent conduct is inapplicable because ‘the fiduciary must have knowledge of that which was not disclosed.'” There was also “nothing on the record indicating any defendant hindered plaintiff’s discovery of the towel or took any affirmative act that remotely approaches fraud.” Absent the existence of actual awareness, plaintiffs argued that defendants’ constructive knowledge as to “the inappropriate use of blue towels in body cavities and Dr. Heinzelmann’s actual knowledge that he had utilized a blue towel during plaintiff’s surgery were sufficient to warrant disclosure to plaintiff” as to the nonexistence of a towel count. Plaintiffs relied on an unpublished case, Doyle. Noting that it was not bound to follow Doyle. the court also did not find Doyle instructive or persuasive as it was distinguishable. “Here, Dr. Heinzelmann did not perform counts of blue towels, did not know that a towel had been left behind, and was not aware of anyone who had knowledge of the retained towel.” Further, there was no evidence suggesting he “failed to disclose known information at any point in an attempt to deprive plaintiffs of a potential cause of action.” This was in sharp contrast to the situation in Doyle.
Collateral estoppel; Res judicata; Right result reached for the wrong reason
While it could not agree with the trial court that collateral estoppel barred this action, the court affirmed summary disposition for defendant because plaintiff’s claims here were barred by res judicata. This was the latest in several actions filed by plaintiff, a former tenant of defendant. “Their landlord-tenant relationship came to an end in late 2017, but both parties had turned to the court system before then, and plaintiff has turned to it since then as well.” In this case, she asserted 12 counts against defendant, including “Being An Illegal Monopoly.” As to that claim, the court disagreed with the trial court that collateral estoppel barred this “lawsuit based on the trial court’s prior dismissal of the 2018 lawsuit.” Given that the trial court dismissed that action “based on a lack of jurisdiction, it cannot be said that any of these claims were ‘actually and necessarily determined in the prior proceeding.’” The court also determined that “the trial court’s belief that the remaining 11 ‘issues would be appropriately addressed in the respective cases to which they relate’ was not a sufficient explanation for summary disposition" as to those counts. Although it generally agreed with the trial court that plaintiff “largely failed to provide any ‘authority which would allow this court to address any of these issues,’” the court concluded “that a more detailed explanation of the grounds of dismissal would have been helpful.” However, it affirmed based on the res judicata doctrine because plaintiff could have brought all the claims alleged here in one of the prior lawsuits between the parties.