Quiet title action; Res judicata; Adair v Michigan; MCR 2.504(B); Adversarial parties; Whether the validity of a quitclaim deed could have been litigated in a prior probate court case; The transactional test; Washington v Sinai Hosp of Greater Detroit; Distinguishing Adam v Bell

Holding that the third res judicata factor was not met because plaintiff-Maybee could not have litigated the issue of the validity of a quitclaim deed in a prior probate court case, the court reversed the trial court’s grant of summary disposition to defendant-Breckenridge in this quiet title action. The case arose from a dispute over real property (the Luther property) owned by the parties’ now deceased father, Jones. The probate case was filed by another person who claimed to be one of his heirs. It was dismissed under MCR 2.504(B), which the court found constituted an adjudication on the merits. Further, both parties here were parties to the probate court case and were adversarial in that case. However, as to the third factor (whether this “quiet title action involved claims that were, or could have been, resolved in” that probate case), the court concluded it was not satisfied for three reasons – “(1) the quiet title action and probate case involve different transactions; (2) the probate court dismissed the will and closed the estate before Maybee could seek an order quieting title for the Luther property; and (3) applying res judicata to bar” her quiet title action violated the principles of fairness underpinning res judicata jurisprudence. Noting that a transactional test is typically used to determine if a matter could have been resolved in a prior case, the court compared this case to Adam, a third-party no-fault suit for negligence and uninsured motorists that followed a first-party case for personal protection insurance benefits arising from the same accident. “Unlike the accident in Adam, here, the quiet title action and prior probate case did not even arise out of the same factual transaction. The probate case began and largely ended with the question of the validity of the will, which Jones purportedly executed in [7/18]. The quiet title action involves the question of the validity of a quitclaim deed purportedly executed in 2015. The two documents were not related in time.” In addition, the circumstances and facts of their execution were “significantly different because they were notarized at different times with different witnesses. As a result, Maybee’s action to quiet title to the at-issue property did not arise ‘from the same transaction such that plaintiff in the exercise of reasonable diligence could have raised this’ claim in the prior will matter in probate court.” The court added that the two cases also involved different motivations. Remanded.