Admissible evidence; Judicial notice; MRE 201(b)(2) & (c)-(e); Winekoff v. Pospisil; Prawdzik v. Heidema Bros., Inc.; In re Stowe; Hawkeye Cas. Co. v. Frisbee; People v. Snow; Breach of contract; Mallory v. Detroit; Parol evidence; Dunn v. Bennett; Damages; Alan Custom Homes, Inc. v. Krol; Recission; Rosenthal v. Triangle Dev. Co.; Material breach; Holtzlander v. Brownell; Negligence; Hill v. Sears, Roebuck & Co.; Duty; Loweke v. Ann Arbor Ceiling & Partition Co., LLC; Principle that a plaintiff cannot maintain an action in tort for nonperformance of a contract; Casey v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co.; Proximate cause; Ray v. Swager; Cause in fact; Patrick v. Turkelson; Skinner v. Square D Co.; Abuse of process; Lawrence v. Burdi; Vallance v. Brewbaker; Motion for reconsideration; Denial of an adjournment for further discovery

Holding that there were no errors requiring reversal, the court affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary disposition for defendants-construction company and representative. Plaintiff sued defendants claiming their removal of the notice of foreclosure posted on the home it was having built prevented it from learning of the foreclosure and paying the taxes. The trial court granted summary disposition for defendants and denied plaintiff’s motion to adjourn to permit additional discovery. In two prior appeals as to the foreclosure, the court ruled against plaintiff, finding the notice provisions were satisfied. In the present appeal, it rejected plaintiff’s argument that the trial court erred by granting summary disposition because defendants failed to support their dispositive motion with admissible evidence. “Because defendants asserted that they were entitled to judgment as a matter of law in light of the plain language of the contract, additional documentation was unnecessary in light of their argument.” It also rejected plaintiff’s claim that the trial court improperly granted summary disposition of its claims for breach of contract. “The posting of the foreclosure notice was not the sole warning to plaintiff of the failure to pay property taxes. Rather, plaintiff recorded its address on the deed and presumably was aware of the need to pay taxes.” Yet, it failed to “ensure that the address on the deed was correct and updated accordingly.” Further, there was “no indication that the contractor agreed to become plaintiff’s on-site agent for purposes of addressing the tax consequences of property ownership.” As to plaintiff’s negligence claim, it could not “be concluded that any removal of the notice . . . was the ‘but for’ cause of the foreclosure in light of the notice procedure that was followed by the county.” The trial court also did not improperly dismiss the abuse of process claim. “Although plaintiff contends that defendants benefitted from the foreclosure because the county promised to pay defendants any outstanding contractual balance,” no evidentiary support for this was offered. Finally, the court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration, or by failing to grant an adjournment to allow it to engage in more discovery.