Applicability of the 15-year limitations period for actions for recovery or possession of land or to quiet title; MCL 600.5801; Statutory interpretation; Stanton v. City of Battle Creek; Odom v. Wayne Cnty; MCL 600.5801(4); Determining the gravamen of an action; Adams v. Adams; Whether it would be appropriate to allow plaintiff to amend his complaint; MCR 2.118(A)(2) & (D); Fraudulent concealment exception; MCL 600.5855; Mays v. Snyder; Buszek v. Harper Hosp.; Prentis Family Found. v. Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Inst.; Whether Prentis implies that reasonable diligence might not be required where a fiduciary relationship existed between a plaintiff & a defendant; Whether the issues of forgery & fraudulent concealment were questions for the jury

The trial court correctly ruled that MCL 600.5801 did not apply to plaintiff’s claims as pled, because he did not bring an action to quiet title or for the recovery of possession of property. But the court remanded for the trial court to consider whether he should be allowed to amend his complaint in order to allege such a claim. He failed to establish that defendant-Smith fraudulently concealed any causes of action and thus, MCL 600.5855 was also inapplicable. The court affirmed the order granting summary disposition for Smith and the other defendants; however, it vacated the portion of the order dismissing plaintiff’s case, and remanded. Plaintiff contended that the trial court should have applied the 15-year limitations period for actions for recovery or possession of land or to quiet title to his claims arising out of Smith’s alleged forgery of a quitclaim deed. He contended “that, because his claims necessarily stemmed from Smith’s alleged forgery of a quitclaim deed, they were subject to the limitations period” in MCL 600.5801(4). The trial court found that the statute did not apply because plaintiff did not sue for “quiet title or for adverse possession.” The court agreed that his claims could not “be read as claims for quiet title or adverse possession,” and thus, MCL 600.5801(4) did not apply to plaintiff’s claims as pled. The “complaint alleged that Smith had breached a contract with plaintiff by failing to pay him money owed under an agreement, and a related claim for unjust enrichment based, again, on Smith allegedly having not paid him money.” Both claims are governed by the six-year statute of limitations in MCL 600.5807. “Plaintiff also asserted claims of fraudulent and innocent misrepresentation against Smith, alleging that he was induced by Smith’s misrepresentations to obtain a mortgage, perform work on the property, and sign what plaintiff alleges was a fraudulent quitclaim deed. These fraud claims” were subject to the residual six-year limitations period in MCL 600.5813. Finally, his “fraudulent conveyance” claim did seek to have the conveyance declared fraudulent, but (1) alleged that it “was ‘without consideration and was otherwise fraudulent to’” him and (2) specifically requested a judgment under the “Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act,” which has “its own statutory provision proscribing which limitations periods apply to claims for relief under the act, none of which are” the period in MCL 600.5801. None of his claims could “be read as having as their gravamen a request for entry unto land, recovery or possession of land, quiet title, or adverse possession.”