Claims under the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA); Suit against an instrumentality of the state; The Court of Claims Act (COCA); Whether MCL 600.6431(1) (the COCA’s one-year notice provision) or MCL 600.6431(4) (the COCA’s six-month notice provision) applied; Christie v Wayne State Univ; St Juliana v State Police; Case precedent involving claims based on physical harm; “Personal injury” in relation to the COCA; The Revised Judicature Act’s (RJA) definition of the term (MCL 600.6301(b))

The court held that the COCA’s one-year notice provision in MCL 600.6431(1), rather than the six-month provision in MCL 600.6431(4), governed plaintiff’s age and sex discrimination claims under the ELCRA. Thus, governmental immunity did not bar her claims, and the Court of Claims properly denied defendants’ summary disposition motion. The primary issue on appeal was whether MCL 600.6431(1) or 600.6431(4) applied. The court concluded that, despite “defendants’ assertions to the contrary, our Supreme Court’s examination of MCL 600.6431 in Christie, and its holding that reversal was warranted because ‘[i]t s undisputed in this case that plaintiff did not comply with MCL 600.6431(1) within one year of the accrual of her claims,’ underscores that subsection (1), not subsection (4), controls claims advanced under the ELCRA.” While the Supreme Court “did not expressly address MCL 600.6431(4), [it] advanced that MCL 600.6431(5) operated as an exception to the notice requirement.” Further, Michigan “appellate courts have consistently applied MCL 600.6431(1) to determine whether a plaintiff has timely filed” ELCRA claims. The court noted there was “not a single binding, published case holding that ELCRA claims qualify as ‘personal injury’ claims, such that MCL 600.6431(4) governs the notice requirements.” It also noted that in St Juliana, it “recently addressed the significance of the differing notice provisions in MCL 600.6431 in light of the Christie decision.” The court concluded that, despite the Supreme “Court’s holding in Christie, certain types of claims appear to remain subject to the stricter notice requirements set forth in subsection (4). But the context in which this Court has examined whether parties complied with MCL 600.6431(4) has broadly involved claims premised on some sort of physical harm.” It noted that the circumstances in those cases bore little resemblance to those here, involving “plaintiff’s nonreappointment, which prompted her to file [this] suit—or to the usual events giving rise to an employment discrimination claim in violation of the ELCRA.” Considering the RJA’s definition of “personal injury,” the court found “that the ‘personal injuries’ contemplated in MCL 600.6431(4), and thus the resulting claims subject to the six-month notice provision, are those involving physical harm, which is not implicated here.” Affirmed.