Violations of the Open Meetings Act (OMA); MCL 15.263(1)-(3); Whether a city’s marijuana license Selection Committee was a “public body”; Pinebrook Warren, LLC v City of Warren (Pinebrook Warren II)

On remand from the Supreme Court for reconsideration in light of Pinebrook Warren II, the court held that the trial court erred in ruling that defendant-Westland Marijuana Selection Committee (the SC) “could not have violated the OMA because it was not a ‘public body.’” The case arose from defendant-city’s process for granting licenses to sell marijuana. “The OMA requires that ‘meetings,’ ‘decisions,’ and ‘deliberations’ of a ‘public body’ must be open to the public.” The Supreme Court, in Pinebrook Warren II, held that defendant-city of Warren’s “Review Committee, which functioned in a very similar manner to that alleged with respect to the city’s [SC] in this case, was acting as a ‘public body.’” The allegations here were “very similar to those in Pinebrook Warren. In both cases, a separate committee was set up to review and score applications for licenses, and the final results were sent to the governing body, the city council, for its decision. Plaintiffs alleged in this case, as was alleged in Pinebrook Warren, that the committee was charged with reviewing and scoring the applications, and that the city council did not independently consider the merits of those applications. Therefore, under Pinebrook Warren II, plaintiffs’ allegations, if proven, would support the conclusion that the [SC] in this case was the de facto decisionmaker” as to awarding marijuana-seller licenses and thus, “subject to the OMA.” The arguments made by defendants and intervening defendants did “not alter this conclusion.” While they pointed “out that appeals from the decisions of the city’s Review Board were open to the public, it is the activity of the [SC] that is at issue in plaintiffs’ OMA claims. By the time the Review Board heard appeals, the selection process had been completed and the applicants had already been ranked.” Further, it appeared that it “made no changes to the [SC’s] recommendations, suggesting that [it] may have merely ‘rubber stamped’ the [SC’s] work. Additionally, the city council arguably had insufficient time to engage in an independent review of the work performed by the [SC] if it was only acting in an advisory capacity. Defendants and intervening defendants” failed to establish this case was “different enough from Pinebrook Warren to compel a conclusion that they should prevail as a matter of law.” The court reversed the portion of the order granting them summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(8) on the OMA claims and remanded.