The Wrongful Imprisonment Compensation Act (WICA); Constitutional challenge to MCL 691.1755(13) (the WICA reimbursement provision); “Void for vagueness” doctrine; Statutory challenges; “An award of compensation;” Attorney fees; MCL 691.1755(2)(c)(iv); “Damages obtained”; “Any other person”; MCL 691.1755(8); “Is subject to”

The court held that the WICA’s reimbursement provision (MCL 691.1755(13)) “is not unconstitutionally vague as applied to plaintiff, but is in fact clear and unambiguous as to what it” required. The statute “requires reimbursement of (or setoff from) the entire WICA judgment when the plaintiff (and not any other individual) recovers compensation from any other person (including individual police officers) arising from the same wrongful conviction and imprisonment. Because plaintiff received compensation from another source, MCL 691.1755(13) required defendant to be reimbursed from the amount plaintiff recovered in the federal award.” Thus, the Court of Claims did not err in ordering reimbursement or setoff here. The sole issue was “whether WICA requires plaintiff to reimburse defendant the amount of the WICA judgment because of the $7.5 million federal award arising from the same wrongful conviction and imprisonment.” Under MCL 691.1755(13), he “must reimburse defendant for the state award because he received the federal award for the same wrongful conviction and imprisonment. This provision is not subject to any other reasonable understanding.” But plaintiff argued “the subsection is vague and ambiguous because several terms are undefined and susceptible to different meanings. MCL 691.1752 outlines the definitions used in WICA, but does not define certain terms and phrases, such as ‘award of compensation,’ ‘is subject to,” or “any other person.’ Although the Legislature provided no definitions for these phrases,” the court found that “their meaning is not ambiguous.” Under MCL 691.1755(2)(c)(iv), “the award of attorney fees is treated as a separate award that cannot reduce the compensation awarded to plaintiff under MCL 691.1755(2)(a) and (b). It is therefore clear that ‘an award of compensation’ refers only to the WICA judgment awarded to plaintiff, and not the separate WICA attorney-fee award.” The court found that the Court of Claims permissibly inferred that the amount plaintiff retained from the federal award was “‘more than double the amount he received from the state in this WICA action.’” Thus, it held that “regardless of whether all, some, or none of the attorney fees plaintiff paid are properly considered ‘damages obtained’ for purposes of MCL 691.1755(13), the statute is clear that [he] must reimburse the full amount of his state award from the damages he obtained through the federal award.” Further, the court concluded that “the phrase ‘any other person’ is not vague.” Finally, it found that reading “the provisions of MCL 691.1755 in harmony, . . . supports defendant’s argument that the phrase ‘is subject to’ is mandatory in nature.” Affirmed.