Judicial foreclosure; The law of the case doctrine; Libel; MCL 600.2911; Fisher v Detroit Free Press, Inc; Glazer v Lamkin; Substantial truth; Collins v Detroit Free Press, Inc

Concluding that the law of the case doctrine precluded consideration of both plaintiffs’ issues as to the judicial foreclosure order, and that the trial court properly granted defendants-mortgage entities summary disposition on plaintiff-Mary Hargrow’s libel claim, the court affirmed. It first noted that plaintiffs challenged the judicial foreclosure order “on the same grounds that were raised in their application for leave which we denied . . . based on the merits of the grounds presented.” Thus, the court would not address them again in this appeal by right. As to Mary’s libel claim, “the trial court correctly concluded that the statements made in the offending assignments were substantially true in light of Mary’s self-identification as a ‘borrower’ on the mortgage. The assignments in no way indicate that Mary owes any obligation to pay on the promissory note.” While she took issue with the word “borrower” as implying to an average person that she owed a debt, this was “mere speculation. Mary presented no actual evidence that such an interpretation occurred, let alone that it caused her a compensable injury.” The evidence she offered related to applications for lines of credit and financing “where she dealt with entities skilled in the art of lending, as opposed to an average person who might be unfamiliar with the difference between a promissory note, which is a debt instrument, and a mortgage, which is a security instrument that encumbers real property. Moreover, the manner in which an average person might interpret the term ‘borrower’ does not render the statements in the assignments untrue.” In addition, to the extent she contended it was unnecessary to produce evidence of economic injury for her libel per se claim, the court found her arguments unpersuasive. Her “only evidence of harm to her profession is her testimony that a decline in her real estate business in [10/17] was attributable to the offending assignments according to her ‘business feeling’ and ‘business sixth sense.’” The court found this to be “pure conjecture.”