Quantum meruit; Existence of an express contract covering the same subject matter; Effect of City Charter provisions; Black v Common Council of City of Detroit; Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)

On remand from the Supreme Court, the court held that although the trial court erred in granting defendant-city summary disposition of plaintiff’s quantum meruit claim under MCR 2.116(C)(8), there were two distinct bases to grant it summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10). The case involved blight demolition efforts in the Saginaw area under the TARP. Plaintiff won the bidding process and demolished several buildings. The issue here was whether defendant was entitled to summary disposition on his quantum meruit claim under MCR 2.116(C)(10). The court held that because the relevant contents of the parties’ contract were undisputed, there was no genuine issue of material fact for resolution at trial. “As a matter of law, because the parties had a written agreement expressly governing the compensation to which plaintiff was entitled for the demolition work that is the subject of this lawsuit, plaintiff cannot seek additional compensation for such work under a quantum meruit theory.” The City Charter also prevented him from recovering under this theory. Plaintiff argued that Black was not dispositive because here, defendant “wasn’t going to pay any amount of money for demolition services—instead, it was going to procure and contract for such services with the attendant costs being paid wholly by the [Saginaw County] Land Bank,” via TARP grants. In other words, because the alleged extracontractual work here “did not require the expenditure of any City funds, whether raised by tax, grant, or otherwise,” plaintiff asserted that the claim was not contrary to Charter § 33, unlike the claim in Black. The trial court rejected that argument, and the court concurred fully with its analysis. Section 33 “expressly applies to ‘all transactions involving the expenditure of two thousand dollars ($2,000) or more[.]’ Because nothing in” this language was ambiguous, it must be applied as written. Further, § 33 did not specify that it does not apply “when defendant anticipates that a given expenditure will be paid for by grant funding or any other source of noncity funds. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to construe the Charter as if it did, in fact, contain such language.” Finally, plaintiff did not sue the Land Bank in this case—he asserted his claims against the city. As he sought a judgment that the city—not the Land Bank—was “liable to him in quantum meruit for in excess of $2,000[,]” the court held that Charter § 33 barred him from recovering under a quantum meruit theory. Affirmed.