Private nuisance; Proposed amendment to add a count of aggravated stalking; Other acts evidence; MRE 404(b)(1); MRE 403; Choice of law as to a defamation claim; Absolute privilege; Personal protection orders (PPOs)

The court held that the trial court properly granted defendant-Guinan, Sr., summary disposition on the claim of private nuisance. Also, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by disallowing the proposed amendment to add a count of aggravated stalking, or by ruling that certain evidence would be excluded under MRE 403. Finally, the presumption for applying the law of the forum state (i.e., Michigan) was not overcome. Plaintiffs-Brovins and Oehmke obtained ex parte PPOs against defendant-Guinan, Jr., in 10/17, and in 3/18 they filed this suit, raising various theories against Guinan, Jr., and Guinan, Sr. It was not disputed that in 10/18, “Guinan, Jr., used the Internet to provide a tip to” the FBI about Oehmke. The trial court allowed plaintiffs to amend their complaint to add a count of defamation. They contended on appeal that it erred by finding no genuine issue of material fact as to whether Guinan, Sr., maintained a private nuisance by allowing Guinan, Jr., to sometimes stay at Guinan, Sr.’s Michigan home, which in the same neighborhood as Brovins’s Michigan home. They asserted that Guinan, Jr., “stalked plaintiffs from the home and was thereby a nuisance.” They alleged that eight incidents, viewed together, created a question of fact as to “whether Guinan, Sr., maintained a private nuisance:” three incidents along the road, an alleged incident where Guinan, Jr. was walking his dog near their driveway with a baseball bat, a “pickup truck incident, the alleged depositing of garbage, the alleged unlatching of Brovins’s gate, and the Internet FBI tip. As for the pickup truck incident, during which a green pickup truck allegedly entered Brovins’s driveway, Oehmke admitted that he could not see who was driving the truck. Even the operative complaint itself states that ‘no positive [identification] of the driver could be made.’ Oehmke also admitted that he did not know if Guinan, Jr., had unlatched the gate on Brovins’s deck; instead he was conjecturing that Guinan, Jr., had done so.” And it was not shown who had placed the food containers in the trash can. The reference to the Internet tip was similarly not supportive of their nuisance claim. There was no evidence that the “tip resulted from Guinan, Sr.’s harboring of Guinan, Jr., in his Michigan home, and the tip clearly involved no invasion by Guinan, Sr., or Guinan, Jr., into plaintiffs’ property interests.” As to the incidents along the road, “plaintiffs failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact regarding an interference with any ‘property rights’ in the public road.”