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summaries of opinions as they are released from the Michigan Supreme Court, Michigan Court of Appeals (published & unpublished), and selected U.S. Sixth Circuit.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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Dismissal of breach-of-contract claim; Condition precedent; Case evaluation sanctions; MCR 2.403(O)(1); MCR 1.102; The Construction Lien Act (CLA)
The court held that the trial court erred by granting in part defendant-SAA’s summary disposition motion and dismissing plaintiff-Decora’s breach-of-contract claim. The plain language of the contract did not require Decora to give SAA “30 days’ notice of SAA’s default before it filed its complaint.” In addition, the trial court abused its discretion in “applying the old case-evaluation-sanctions rule and awarding Decora case evaluation sanctions.” Decora argued “that § 6 of the parties’ contract did not require it to give SAA 30 days’ notice before it filed its complaint against SAA.” The court agreed. It found that the “plain language of § 6 required Decora to provide SAA 30 days’ notice before it terminated the contract, but did not require it to do so if it sought another remedy. Termination of the contract was not the only remedy available, and the phrase ‘[i]n addition to any and all other rights a party may have available according to law’ makes clear that the parties were free to pursue remedies other than termination. No contractual language conditioned Decora’s ability to file suit against SAA on Decora providing SAA with 30 days’ notice before it did so, and” the original trial court judge assigned to the case erred in “rewriting the parties’ contract to contain such a requirement.” Given that “a court cannot rewrite an unambiguous contract,” the court reversed in part the 7/14/22 order to the extent it granted SAA’s summary disposition motion and dismissed Decora’s breach-of-contract claim. SAA contended “that the trial court erred by awarding case-evaluation sanctions on Decora’s claims asserted in its amended complaint when Decora filed the amended complaint after case evaluation, and the claims asserted in the amended complaint were not before the case-evaluation panel. Case evaluation occurred in” 12/20. The court concluded “that the trial court abused its discretion by awarding case evaluation sanctions. Although the trial court stated in its order that there ‘shall be no double recovery in sanctions,’ it awarded Decora case-evaluation sanctions as well as $55,957.50 in sanctions under the CLA. Because Decora was able to recover its costs and attorney fees under the CLA, applying the amended version of MCR 2.403 rather than the former version of the court rule would not have ‘work[ed] injustice’ as stated in MCR 1.102.” Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for entry of an amended judgment.
Other acts evidence; MRE 404(b); People v VanderVliet; Relevance; Motive; Premeditation & deliberation; MRE 403; People v Blackston; Sufficiency of the evidence for a first-degree premeditated murder conviction; People v Oros
Holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting other acts evidence and that there was sufficient evidence to support defendant’s first-degree premeditated murder conviction, the court affirmed. The prosecution offered the evidence that defendant had used the victim’s (L) credit card to support its theory as to “motive and intent, specifically that [L] had broken up with defendant upon discovering he had used her card to purchase 300 dollars of phone sex. The prosecution offered the evidence that defendant had made an obscene phone call three days after [L’s] disappearance to show that defendant owned, and had destroyed, the cellular phone that had called the phone sex line . . . and had made inconsistent or contradictory statements to police about how many” cell phones and numbers he had, showing consciousness of guilt. The court concluded “the trial court did not err by holding that the prosecution had offered the evidence for a proper, non-propensity purpose.” As to relevance and the evidence that he used L’s “card to purchase phone sex, and that she had ended the relationship as a result, evidence of motive is always relevant in a criminal prosecution, and other-acts evidence may be admitted if relevant to prove motive.” Further, evidence that he had a cell phone that he did not initially disclose “to the police investigating [L’s] disappearance, that he had given inconsistent statements to police” about his cell “phone ownership and use, and had destroyed that phone a few days after [L’s] disappearance, was relevant to the issue of” his cell “phone ownership and use and to explain the investigation into [L’s] disappearance.” The court also held that the evidence was properly not excluded under MRE 403. It further concluded that, while circumstantial, the “evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, would enable a rational jury to conclude that defendant had caused [L’s] death.” The prosecution presented “more than evidence that defendant knew [L] was dead—circumstantial evidence linking [him] to the area where [L’s] personal items were recovered, and [his] post-offense behavior, support the conclusion that [he] had killed” her. The evidence also “fairly permitted the jury’s inference of premeditation and deliberation.”
Marital property division; MCL 552.19; Sparks v Sparks; Dissipation of marital assets; MCL 552.401; Sands v Sands; Attorney & expert fee shifting; MCR 3.206(D); Loutts v Loutts
The court held that the trial court’s property division and fee rulings in this contentious divorce were fair and equitable, so the judgment of divorce was affirmed. The parties’ marriage involved numerous businesses, multimillion-dollar accounts receivable, large personal guarantees, and allegations of dissipation on paramours, gold bars, and status-quo violations. After a bench trial, the trial court awarded defendant all business interests and related personal guarantees, ordered the parties to split collections on existing accounts receivable, treated certain expenditures as dissipation, and denied plaintiff attorney fees while granting her expert witness fees up to a capped amount. On appeal, the court held that awarding defendant the businesses and all personal guarantees but splitting receivables outstanding at judgment appropriately recognized that “the vast majority of the estate’s assets and debts were dependent on speculative, future events” and allowed plaintiff to share in profits generated during the marriage while defendant retained full benefit and risk going forward. The court also found no error in the limited dissipation findings where plaintiff failed to prove many challenged withdrawals, alleged paramour spending, and gold-bar claims, noting that she bore the burden of proof and that “trial courts are not the research assistants of litigants.” It further held that the trial court properly treated funds in a joint account with plaintiff’s brother as an advance to plaintiff in light of her own testimony about removing her name to keep defendant from the money and her failure to present corroborating evidence. Finally, the court upheld the denial of attorney fees because plaintiff did not show defendant could pay more than $350,000 and because her own conduct and voluntary underemployment “inflated her financial need for fees,” while the award of capped expert fees was justified since plaintiff’s expert’s valuation work “formed a cornerstone of the trial discussion” and the court required a line-by-line allocation to exclude arbitration-related charges.
Ripeness of a claim to compel production of a government record; Distinguishing Arabo v Michigan Gaming Control Bd; Final determination; MCL 15.240(1); Principle that the FOIA does not require a public body to create a record that does not otherwise exist (MCL 15.233(5)); Opposing summary disposition on the basis discovery has not yet been completed; MCR 2.116(H); Document verification; MCR 1.109(D)(3)(b); Applicability of the frank communications FOIA exemption (MCL 15.243(1)(m)); Bukowski v Detroit; Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office (OCPO)
The court held that plaintiff’s action challenging defendant’s claimed FOIA exemptions and seeking unredacted video footage was ripe. But as to his claim related to a list, it found that the trial court did not err in concluding “there were no genuine issues of material fact as to whether or not a list existed.” It also upheld the trial court’s ruling that “the frank communications exemption applied to allow defendant to redact material from” certain e-mails. Plaintiff sought, among other things, copies of a video presentation, a list of presenters for a presentation, and all e-mails between members of the OCPO (including defendant) and a judge since 10/22. The court agreed with him “that the trial court erred in determining that his claim to compel production of the video of the diversity, equity, and inclusion presentations was not ripe.” The trial court found Arabo controlling as to this claim “because plaintiff did not tender a deposit. Arabo dictates that a public body is not required to make a final determination until the requester pays the required deposit; however, nothing in Arabo precludes a public body from making a final determination earlier. Unlike the public body in Arabo, defendant did not condition a final determination on payment of the deposit.” The court concluded she “effectively denied plaintiff’s request as it related to the unredacted footage” and this denial was her “final determination on [his] request for the unredacted footage, regardless of whether [he] had paid any processing-fee deposit.” Thus, the court held that the “trial court misapplied the FOIA when it determined defendant had not made a final determination and erred when it dismissed plaintiff’s claim with respect to the presentation footage as unripe. Because defendant made a final determination” as to the presentation footage, plaintiff “sustained the actual injury of having his request denied.” The court reversed the trial court as to its ripeness ruling and remanded “for it to address the merits of plaintiff’s exemption challenges.” But it rejected his other arguments on appeal, concluding among other things that, as to the e-mails, “the trial court correctly found that the need to foster open and honest communication between the circuit court and the OCPO outweighed the right of the public to be aware of the discussions that led to the creation of” a pilot program. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.
Pandemic healthcare immunity under the Pandemic Health Care Immunity Act (PHCIA); MCL 691.1475; Franklin v McLaren Flint; Summary disposition for statutory immunity; MCR 2.116(C)(7)
The court held that defendants were not immune under the PHCIA because plaintiff’s malpractice claims did not arise from services provided in support of the state’s COVID-19 response. Thus, summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(7) was erroneous. Plaintiff, treated by defendant-urologist at a private urology practice for urine retention beginning in 4/20, alleged malpractice for failure to timely diagnose prostate cancer by not ordering PSA testing or biopsies, leading to metastatic disease. The trial court initially denied defendants’ PHCIA motion but later granted summary disposition on reconsideration, relying on Franklin. On appeal, the court held that PHCIA immunity requires a connection between the alleged negligent services and the state’s pandemic response. It emphasized that plaintiff was not “being treated for COVID-19” and there was no indication the private urology practice was engaged in COVID-19 care. The court rejected defendants’ argument that lack of onsite blood draws tied the care to COVID-19, noting that the doctor admitted his practice did not always have phlebotomists even before the pandemic, that he cited non-pandemic reasons for not checking PSA levels, and that he testified he gave plaintiff an order for an offsite PSA test that plaintiff did not complete. The court also stressed that the failure to obtain a PSA test was only one of several alleged omissions, including not obtaining tissue biopsies during multiple procedures, and defendants “have not claimed that the other alleged diagnostic shortcomings had some connection to the COVID-19 pandemic.” Because the record showed no such connection, plaintiff’s suit was not barred by the PHCIA and defendants were not entitled to immunity. Reversed and remanded.