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summaries of opinions as they are released from the Michigan Supreme Court, Michigan Court of Appeals (published & unpublished), and selected U.S. Sixth Circuit.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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Fourth & Fourteenth Amendment challenges to Michigan’s “blood spot” newborn health screening program; MCL 333.5431; The “law of the case” doctrine; Whether storing anonymized blood spots & using them for purposes beyond the child’s medical diagnosis or treatment interferes with parents’ fundamental right to direct their children’s medical care; Capen v Saginaw Cnty; Whether defendants violated plaintiffs-children’s Fourth Amendment rights by storing & using the blood spots & data without consent; Search & seizure; Whether plaintiffs had a “possessory interest” in the blood spots & data; Mootness; Michigan Department of Health & Human Services (MDHHS)
[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] In this case raising Fourteenth and Fourth Amendment challenges to Michigan’s newborn health screening program that involves collecting blood samples, the court held that plaintiffs-families “failed to show that defendants’ conduct at issue—retention and use of the dried blood spots and data—implicates the parents’ right to direct the control of their children’s medical care.” It also held that “dried blood spot storage; data storage; and use of the dried blood spot for research, equipment calibration, test improvements, and victim identification” did not constitute “an unreasonable search or a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.” MCL 333.5431 requires medical personnel to prick every newborn’s heel within hours of birth to create “a dried blood spot card.” Plaintiffs argued that “Michigan’s scheme entails coercive, non-consensual taking and keeping of baby blood for the state’s profit, in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.” The district court initially dismissed their claims, but a prior panel of the court reversed as to several claims and remanded. On remand, the district court ruled for plaintiffs. In this appeal, the court first found that the appeal was not moot, and that “conclusory legal statements from” its prior opinion did “not establish binding law of the case[.]” Turning to the merits, as to the Fourteenth Amendment claim, the court considered whether the actions at issue—“storing anonymized blood spots and using them for purposes beyond the child’s medical diagnosis or treatment—impede plaintiff-parents’ fundamental right to direct” their children’s medical care. It concluded that, as “set forth, they do not.” It noted that under “no reading of the caselaw can one argue that the literal act of storing involves medical treatment, diagnosis, or advice, or that this act intrudes on bodily integrity. Nor do the other uses—quality assurance, test improvement, test development, research, and victim identification—constitute medical care for the child who provided the blood spots.” The court then considered whether “storing and using the blood spots and data without consent” violated plaintiffs-children’s Fourth Amendment rights. It concluded that “much of defendants’ conduct is not a search because it is not ‘an attempt to find something or to obtain information.’ . . . [T]he third-party researchers do not obtain private information about individual plaintiff-children because all blood spots are anonymized.” Further, plaintiffs could not show that they were subject to a “seizure” where they failed “to prove that they had a possessory interest in the blood spots and data.” The court reversed the judgment for plaintiffs and vacated “the injunction requiring defendants to destroy the stored data.”
Action to determine interests in land; Whether land contract requirements were satisfied; Quiet title; MCL 600.2932(1); Claim the trial court judge should have been disqualified; Bias; Applicable statute of limitations; MCL 600.2932
Holding that the defendants satisfied the requirements of the land contracts at issue, and rejecting plaintiffs’ other claims of error, the court affirmed the trial court’s order quieting title of the property in defendants. Plaintiffs first asserted “that defendants failed to pay the full amount due under the contract.” The parties’ written contract “required defendants to pay $10,000 for the property, but [defendant-]Dunlop testified that the parties orally agreed to modify the purchase price listed in the land contract, and that defendants paid the amended purchase price.” Plaintiffs contended defendants did not prove the “land contract was orally amended because the only evidence supporting the oral amendment was Dunlop’s testimony. But plaintiffs have not offered any caselaw or other authority to support their apparent assertion that a party cannot establish a fact by clear and convincing evidence on the basis of testimony alone, thereby abandoning the argument.” While they generally attacked Dunlop’s credibility, the court noted that it “gives deference to the trial court’s superior ability to judge the credibility of the witnesses that appear before it,” and it did not see any “reason to question the trial court’s credibility determinations in this case. Accepting Dunlop’s testimony as true, we are not convinced that the trial court made a mistake when it found that defendants proved, by clear and convincing evidence, that the parties orally agreed to modify the purchase price of the property, and that defendants paid that amended price.” Plaintiffs also asserted that “defendants failed to satisfy the terms of the parties’ contract” given witness testimony and other evidence that they “did not pay the 2015 property taxes, or the property taxes for any of the years after 2015. As the trial court rightly noted, however, Dunlop’s testimony established that defendants had fulfilled all of their obligations under the contract ‘by the fall of 2014,’ and it is not apparent why [their] failure to pay property taxes after that time—when equitable title had already passed to defendants—constituted a failure to perform an obligation under the land contract.” The court also found that plaintiffs waived their claim that the trial court judge was biased by failing to move for disqualification in the trial court, and defendants’ counterclaim was not time-barred where it was filed within 15 years after it accrued.
Ineffective assistance of counsel; Trial strategy; Prejudice; Prosecutorial error; Improper vouching; People v Meissner; Sentencing; Waiver; Scoring of PRV 5 (prior misdemeanor convictions or juvenile adjudications); MCL 777.55(1); Harmless error; Scoring of OV 8 (victim asportation or captivity); MCL 777.38(1); People v Chelmicki; Scoring of OV 10 (exploitation of a vulnerable victim); “Predatory conduct”; MCL 777.40(1)(a); People v Kosik; Lifetime registration under the Sex Offenders Registration Act (SORA); Cruel & unusual punishment; People v Kiczenski; Lifetime electronic monitoring (LEM); Unreasonable search; People v Hallak
Finding no errors requiring reversal, the court affirmed defendant’s convictions and sentences. He was convicted of CSC II for sexually abusing the victim when she was approximately six or seven years old. He was sentenced as a second-offense habitual offender to 22½ years. On appeal, the court rejected his argument that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel, noting he failed to “overcome the presumption that counsel’s decision not to request another adjournment was sound trial strategy.” Nor did he show prejudice. The court also rejected his claim that the prosecutor improperly vouched for the victim’s and a detective’s credibility, noting the prosecutor simply “argued that the detective had no motive to lie and that there was no reason to doubt the victim’s credibility. Those arguments responded to the defense theory that the victim fabricated the sexual abuse and were permissible.” It next rejected his sentencing challenges. First, although PRV 5 should “have been assessed at five points . . . and the trial court erred in scoring 10” points, the error did “not change the applicable guidelines range, and” was therefore harmless. As to OV 8, “defendant called the victim into his bedroom before committing the assault, removing her from an area where others might observe them to a more secluded and dangerous” setting, which “supports the 15-point score for OV 8.” As to OV 10, his conduct supported a finding that he “engaged in calculated, preoffense behavior aimed at exploiting the child’s vulnerability to facilitate sexual victimization.” Regarding his sentence to lifetime registration under the SORA, this did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Kiczenski emphasized the “SORA’s connection to a nonpunitive purpose: ‘identifying potentially recidivist sex offenders and alerting the public’ in the interest of public safety.” It also noted that the “SORA’s ‘restrictions are not excessive when applied to the public safety concerns the statute addresses with respect to sex offenders.’” This rationale “applies equally to defendant’s CSC II conviction, which,” like CSC I “involves a sexual offense committed against a ‘young and vulnerable’ victim.” Finally, the LEM requirement was neither cruel and unusual nor an unreasonable search.
Sufficiency of the evidence; FIP & felony-firearm; Great weight of the evidence; Sentencing; Scoring of 10 points for OV 19; Judicial fact-finding
The court concluded that there was sufficient evidence to sustain defendant’s FIP and felony-firearm convictions and that his convictions were not against the great weight of the evidence. It also found “that the facts used by the trial court arguably were insufficient to assess 10 points for OV 19. However, the trial court ultimately reached the correct result.” He was sentenced to 1 to 7½ years for FIP, to run consecutively to 2 years for his felony-firearm conviction. Defendant first argued “that there was insufficient evidence to sustain his convictions and, relatedly, his convictions were against the great weight of the evidence.” The court held that viewed “in a light most favorable to the prosecution, the evidence, and reasonable inferences arising from it, were sufficient to enable the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was in possession of a firearm.” Officer R “testified that when the officers approached the scene, he observed defendant with ‘a clear print’ of a firearm, and Officer [G] testified that he observed both the firearm imprint and the firearm itself. This testimony alone was legally sufficient to sustain his convictions.” Further, Officer G “observed what was subsequently determined to be a firearm magazine fall from defendant as he was fleeing the scene, and the firearm that was found under the car did not have a magazine. And, when defendant was apprehended, he did not have a firearm on his person, but the firearm that was found under the car was along the route that he ran when attempting to flee. Taken together, the most logical explanation is that defendant had a firearm when he was first observed by the police but deposited the firearm under the car when he was attempting to flee the police.” As to the great weight of the evidence, defendant observed “that the prosecution did not introduce fingerprint or DNA evidence linking him to the firearm, and multiple people being in the vicinity resulted in a ‘strong likelihood that someone other than’ defendant possessed the firearm.” The court held the “evidence was more than sufficient to sustain his convictions. Further, while there were other people in the vicinity at the time, defendant testified that he was unaware of anyone else present possessing a firearm.” Thus, given the circumstances of the case, there was “no reason to assume that the firearm at issue was possessed by anyone other than defendant.” He also asserted that the officers’ “testimony was full of ‘material inconsistencies,’ and it [was] ‘simply not credible that the officers could have seen anything given that it was dark.’ While [their] testimony regarding lighting was inconsistent, the jury watched the body-camera footage and found [their] testimony regarding their visibility to be credible.” Finally, defendant suggested “that the jury verdict was inconsistent, as the jury acquitted him of [CCW] but convicted him of” FIP and felony-firearm. The “testimony, if believed by the jury, would establish that defendant [was] not guilty of” CCW but was guilty of FIP and felony-firearm. Affirmed.
Whether summary disposition was prematurely granted; Motion for leave to file an amended complaint; MCR 2.116(I)(5); Motion to strike an amended complaint under MCR 2.115(B)
Holding that the trial court did not err by 1) granting summary disposition for defendants, 2) declining to allow plaintiff an opportunity to file an amended complaint under MCR 2.116(I)(5), or 3) granting defendants’ motion to strike the amended complaint, the court affirmed. Plaintiff first argued “that the trial court erred when it granted defendants’ motion for summary disposition because discovery was not yet complete.” The court concluded that “even if additional discovery was allowed by the trial court, his claims against defendants still would fail. In other words, the fact that plaintiff was seeking to identify possible individual defendants does not change the fact that each of the named defendants were entitled to summary disposition when the trial court entered its opinion and order. Thus, the named defendants were entitled to dismissal of the case at that time.” Moreover, the court was “unaware of any authority to suggest that a case should remain open under these circumstances, i.e., where each of the named defendants are entitled to summary disposition on the merits.” Plaintiff next argued “that the trial court erred when it denied his motion to amend his complaint.” Plaintiff relatedly argued “that the trial court erred when it struck his amended complaint from the record.” The trial court granted defendants summary disposition “on the basis of governmental immunity, a matter contemplated by MCR 2.116(C)(7) (immunity granted by law). MCR 2.116(I)(5) only allows for an opportunity to file an amended pleading if the opposing party is granted summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(8), (C)(9), or (C)(10).” Also, plaintiff challenged “the trial court’s decision to grant defendants’ motion to strike his amended complaint under MCR 2.115(B).” The court concluded that because “MCR 2.118(A)(1) does not apply, plaintiff had to file his amended complaint under MCR 2.118(A)(2). However, plaintiff filed his amended complaint without leave of the trial court on [4/29/24]. The trial court determined that plaintiff did not have leave to amend his complaint, and there was no record indicating that defendants provided consent to file an amended complaint. A motion to strike is properly granted if ‘a pleading [is] not drawn in conformity with [the court] rules.’” Plaintiff was “not entitled to an amendment under MCR 2.118(A)(1) and did not adhere to the requirements of MCR 2.118(A)(2).”
Child’s best interests; In re Simpson; Parent-child bond; Permanency, stability, & finality; Foster care
Holding that termination was in the child’s best interests, the court affirmed termination of respondent-mother’s parental rights. Her rights were terminated under §§ 19b(3)(c)(i), (g), and (j) based on a variety of issues including neglect and trouble with housing and employment. On appeal, the court rejected her argument that termination was not in the child’s best interests. She claimed “the trial court gave inadequate weight to the parent-child bond and gave too much weight both to [the child’s] need for permanency, stability, and finality and to the advantages of foster care over respondent’s home.” However, the record reflected that “the trial court thoughtfully considered all the evidence relevant to these factors before rendering its findings.” It also reflected that the trial court’s “findings were amply supported by the evidence presented.” First, the record was “fully consistent” with the trial court’s finding that respondent and the child had a “weak” parent-child bond. Next, the record was consistent with the trial court’s determination that “although a residential placement was ‘never preferable to a home, whether it be a foster home or parent’s home,’ it nonetheless weighed in favor of termination here because respondent’s home was not appropriate for [the child] and would ‘only result in further trauma to her,’ and the residential placement was ‘really . . . the only hope at this point that she has.’” Lastly, as “to the advantages of foster care over respondent’s home, the caseworker testified that [the child] had been in 15 different placements throughout the case; that [she] had, unfortunately, been sexually assaulted in one of those placements; and that [she] was eventually placed in a residential facility to receive the treatment necessary to address her needs.” Overall, even if the trial court “erred in any of its findings regarding these factors, they [were] just three of many considerations relevant to a best-interests determination.”