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summaries of opinions as they are released from the Michigan Supreme Court, Michigan Court of Appeals (published & unpublished), and selected U.S. Sixth Circuit.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.
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42 USC § 1983 action alleging violation of First Amendment free speech rights; Evaluating whether a public employee’s discharge violates the First Amendment; Rose v Stephens; Pickering v Board of Educ; Whether plaintiff’s speech involved a “matter of public concern”; Whether “strict scrutiny” applied
The court held that defendant-administrative judge Cross’s decision to terminate plaintiff-Gaines’s employment as a domestic-relations court (DR Court) magistrate based on Gaines’s criticism of the court and another magistrate did not violate her right to free speech where “Gaines held a confidential, policymaking as a DR Court magistrate ” and the campaign advertisements at issue addressed matters related to politics and policy. Gaines was a magistrate for defendant-county common pleas court when she declared her candidacy for an upcoming vacancy on the DR Court bench. Another DR Court magistrate (and court administrator), nonparty-P, also declared her candidacy. “Gaines disseminated campaign literature advocating for her election over” P’s. The ads offended Cross, and when Gaines returned to work after losing the primary, Cross “terminated her employment as a magistrate.” Gaines sued under § 1983, alleging that defendants violated her First Amendment free speech rights. The district court dismissed the case for failure to state a claim. On appeal, the court applied the Rose two-part analysis for determining when a public employee’s discharge violates the First Amendment. It noted that the government has “a significant interest in operating an efficient workplace” as well as in having “‘employees who will loyally implement the’” elected officials’ policies. In Rose, it “held that these interests justify ‘the discharge of a policymaking or confidential employee on the basis of speech . . . related to politics or policy.’” It found here that Gaines’s speech involved politics or policy. By emphasizing in one mailer she and P’s “respective work schedules and casting her opponent’s court-appointed duties as trivial, she necessarily undermined the policy decisions of the DR Court’s administrative judge: Cross.” As to the second mailer, by implicating P’s “competency to render domestic-relations decisions for the court, the mailer necessarily criticizes [P’s] competence to do so as a magistrate. And this intrinsically speaks to a DR-Court policy decision: retaining [P’s] current appointment.” The court rejected her “counterarguments to Rose’s applicability” and her request to apply strict scrutiny. Rose and other cases “explicitly contemplate the termination of public employees’ employment for content-based—even viewpoint-based—reasons. Because Gaines served in a confidential or policymaking position, the government need not satisfy strict scrutiny.” Affirmed.
Whether plaintiff-former employee’s civil rights violation claims were time-barred by an employment application’s six-months limitations period; Rayford v American House Roseville I, LLC; Waiver; Retroactive applicability of Rayford
On remand from the Supreme Court for reconsideration in light of Rayford, the court held that plaintiff-former employee did not waive any reliance on Rayford and that Rayford applied here. It also denied defendant’s request that it conclude the employment application’s “shortened limitations period here was reasonable.” Thus, it vacated the trial court’s grant of summary disposition for defendant and remanded the case “to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with” Rayford and this opinion. Plaintiff asked the court to apply Rayford “and remand the case back to the trial court for a review of whether plaintiff’s filing was reasonable, as that term was described in Rayford. Defendant” offered multiple reasons why the court should not do so and should instead affirm summary disposition. The court found no merit in its argument that plaintiff waived reliance on Rayford. Plaintiff contended throughout the proceedings “that the shortened limitations period set forth in his employment agreement was against public policy.” Defendant’s argument that “Rayford should be applied only to cases filed after its date of issuance” (7/31/25) also failed. The court found Rayford did apply here. “As a matter of common sense,” the Supreme Court specifically vacated the court’s prior judgment in this case “and remanded for reconsideration in light of its Rayford decision. If the Supreme Court intended for Rayford to apply only to cases initiated after the date of that decision, then there would have been little reason to remand here.” The court added that “it has long been established that ‘the general rule is that judicial decisions are to be given complete retroactive effect.’” Finally, it declined to “short-circuit the regular litigation process by taking up” the question of whether the limitations period here was reasonable “in the first instance on appeal, especially given the possibility that” making this determination “might require further factual development.”
Sentencing; OV 16 scoring; MCL 777.46; People v Rodriguez; Depreciation; Fair market value of stolen property; MRE 1101(b)(3); People v Johnson; Consideration of sales tax
The court held that the trial court erred by scoring OV 16 at 10 points because the unrebutted evidence showed the stolen lawnmower’s fair market value had depreciated and the combined value of the lawnmower and trailer did not exceed $20,000. Defendant pled guilty to receiving or concealing stolen property after police found a stolen commercial lawnmower on a trailer attached to his vehicle. The owner’s mower had been purchased about 11 months earlier and used for roughly 400 hours. The trial court assessed 10 points for OV 16 using the mower’s original retail price plus the trailer’s value, rejected defendant’s depreciation evidence, and sentenced defendant to prison. On appeal, the court held that OV 16 turns on the property’s value at the time of the offense, not simply the original purchase price, and that fair market value is “‘the price that the item will bring on an open market between a willing buyer and seller.’” The court noted that the seller of this very mower estimated its current value at no more than $16,000 and that the prosecutor offered nothing to rebut that evidence. The court found the trial court’s reasoning inadequate because its only explanation was “that sometimes ‘these things go up’ in value[,]” even though nothing in the record suggested any unusual market condition that would cause appreciation. The court also found it unnecessary to resolve whether sales tax counted because, even using the high end of the seller’s estimate, the value still fell below the threshold for 10 points. Vacated and remanded for resentencing with 5 points scored for OV 16.
Constitutionality of MCL 750.520d(1)(d); CSC, mens rea, & affinity; People v Russell; Medical-treatment exception to hearsay; MRE 803(4); People v Garland; Ineffective assistance; Prosecutorial error; People v Dobek
The court held that MCL 750.520d(1)(d) is not an unconstitutional strict-liability offense because CSC III is a general-intent crime requiring proof that defendant intentionally committed the proscribed sexual act, and that any evidentiary or prosecutorial errors did not warrant reversal. Defendant was convicted of CSC III for sexual penetration of his adult daughter after she testified she woke up to defendant having sex with her from behind while she was intoxicated and blacked out. DNA testing provided “very strong support” that defendant’s DNA was present on a swab from her labia majora and “very strong evidence” that he was her biological father. On appeal, defendant argued the affinity provision is unconstitutional because it lacks a mens rea requirement, but the court relied on Michigan precedent that CSC is a “general intent crime” and that “no intent is requisite other than that evidenced by the doing of the acts constituting the offense,” rejecting the claim that the statute imposes strict liability. The court next agreed that the forensic nurse examiner’s testimony repeating the complainant’s statement that she was assaulted by her “biological father” was inadmissible hearsay because identification of the assailant is not generally “reasonably necessary” for diagnosis and treatment under MRE 803(4) unless shown to be necessary and trustworthy. But it held that the error was harmless because identity was not disputed and the statement was cumulative of the complainant’s testimony, a witness’s testimony that she saw defendant having sex with the complainant, and the DNA evidence, and defendant admitted “[s]omething sexual did happen.” The court also rejected ineffective-assistance claims because even assuming counsel should have objected to the identification hearsay, defendant could not show a reasonable probability of a different outcome given the overwhelming evidence. Finally, it found no prosecutorial error where the “violent” comment about defendant was elicited during defense counsel’s own cross-examination and where the prosecution’s questioning about defendant’s prior statements of sexual interest in the complainant was relevant to the relationship context, and it held that counsel was not ineffective for declining to object to avoid highlighting nonresponsive testimony. Affirmed.
Sentencing; Proportionality of a departure sentence; Adequate justification; Operating while license suspended (OWLS)
The court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in departing upward from the guidelines by six months in sentencing defendant. He was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, receiving and concealing stolen property, assault with a dangerous weapon, first-degree fleeing and eluding, OWLS causing death, failure to stop at scene of accident causing death, moving violation causing death, malicious destruction of property between $200 and $1,000, and larceny less than $200. The sentences at issue on appeal were the concurrent terms of 10 to 15 years for the manslaughter, fleeing and eluding, OWLS causing death, and failure to stop at scene of accident causing death convictions. The 10-year minimum “represented a six-month upward departure from the applicable guidelines range of 62 to 114 months in prison.” In imposing the departure, the trial court reasoned that it “was warranted because of the troubling nature of the crime spree, which began with a stolen truck and culminated with manslaughter. [It] also considered the fact that defendant has no apparent potential for rehabilitation, as demonstrated by the fact that he has an extensive criminal history and was ‘given a gift, Mental Health Court, freedom, treatment, and [he] threw it away and [he] killed someone.’” The court concluded the “trial court’s analysis of these facts justifies the relatively minimal six-month upward departure it imposed.” In particular, his “extensive criminal record and the fact that he was sentenced to Mental Health Court at the time of his conduct” supported the finding that he lacked any apparent rehabilitation potential. His PRV score of 150 or 152 points far exceeded “the 75-point cap on the applicable sentencing grid.” The court held that the sentence imposed “was reasonable in light of the fact that defendant has an extensive criminal history not fully accounted for by the guidelines and the fact that the overall, ultimately fatal crime spree demonstrated a lack of concern for safety or criminality also not captured by the guidelines. By the same measure, it is a proportionate punishment for the crimes committed.” Affirmed.
Auto negligence; Causation; Crossing over the yellow line; Reasonable inference vs impermissible conjecture
The court agreed “that plaintiffs failed to establish causation, and that the trial court erred by denying [defendants’] pretrial motions for summary disposition, directed verdict, JNOV, and for a new trial.” Thus, it vacated the judgment in favor of plaintiffs, holding defendants liable for injuries to plaintiff-Brown and awarding damages of $9,512,590.35, and remanded for entry of an order granting judgment in favor of defendants. There “were no witnesses who saw how Brown was injured, and Brown himself does not remember what happened. There was no physical evidence establishing that any portion of [defendant-] Comstock’s truck or trailer (or the equipment on the trailer) made contact with any part of Brown’s body; nor did any experts conclude that Brown’s injuries were caused by contact with a moving vehicle or trailer (or, assuming contact, how the contact occurred).” Plaintiffs argued “that the jury was permitted to presume, from Comstock’s alleged violation of a traffic statute, that he had acted negligently, and to infer that Brown was not negligent because of his inability to recall what happened.” The court noted that “presumptions, even if they apply in this case, go to the issues of duty, breach, and comparative fault, not causation-in-fact.” Plaintiffs argued that because a witness “saw Brown lying on the ground immediately after Comstock’s truck passed, the jury could reasonably conclude Comstock’s alleged negligence must have caused Brown’s injury.” Although that explanation was “not inconsistent with the facts presented at trial, plaintiffs did not produce evidence to ‘exclude other reasonable hypotheses with a fair amount of certainty,’ and plaintiff’s theory is not deducible as a ‘reasonable inference.’” In other words, plaintiffs merely speculated “and invited the jury to speculate—about how Brown was injured. There were multiple ‘plausible explanations’ for Brown’s injury, and although plaintiffs’ theory was one of them, the evidence was ‘without selective application’ as to any of them, and therefore they ‘remain conjectures only.’” No evidence pointed “to any particular theory of causation, or any evidentiary basis from which from which a jury could determine, beyond conjecture, what had happened. The mere possibility that Brown could have been injured as a result of Comstock’s alleged negligence was insufficient as a matter of law to establish causation.” The court found that even “presuming that Comstock was negligent in crossing over the yellow line, Brown’s acknowledged awareness of Comstock’s truck and trailer and of their passing of the garbage truck—as confirmed by Brown’s and Comstock’s contemporaneous meeting of eyes— demonstrates that Comstock’s crossing of the yellow line itself played no causative role in the event. The jury was not permitted to infer causation merely because it presumed Comstock negligent and Brown not negligent; moreover, the issue should not have reached the jury without plaintiffs presenting more than mere speculation in support of causation.”