Jury trial waiver; MCR 2.508(B)(1); Anzaldua v Band; Effect of transfer on jury waiver; MCR 2.227(E)(3); Dawley v Hall; Relevance; MRE 401; Morales v State Farm Mut Auto Ins Co

The court held that plaintiff waived her right to a civil jury trial by failing to pay the jury fee when she first demanded a jury, and that the later stipulated venue transfer did not make that waiver “ineffective.” Plaintiff, proceeding in propria persona, sued a propane supplier after a district-court matter in which the supplier agreed to a final prepaid delivery and the parties agreed the supplier could retrieve its tank, but plaintiff later blocked retrieval and pursued circuit-court claims for breach of contract, emotional distress, and ownership of the tank while the supplier counterclaimed for conversion and injunctive relief. The trial court dismissed plaintiff’s claims for no cause of action, ordered plaintiff to allow removal of the propane tank, and enjoined plaintiff from contacting defendant or its employees. On appeal, the court held that “both the timely filing of a written jury demand and payment of the jury fee are necessary to preserve the right to a jury trial,” and that plaintiff “failed to timely pay the jury fee when she made her demand for a jury trial,” so she “waived her right to a jury trial.” The court rejected plaintiff’s reliance on the transfer rule, explaining that MCR 2.227 “applies only to transfers of venue based on the original court’s lack of subject-matter jurisdiction” and the rule “does not apply to transfers by stipulation of the parties,” so the stipulated transfer “did not trigger the rule that makes prior waivers ineffective.” The court also upheld exclusion of plaintiff’s proposed exhibits, stating that the proffered materials about pyramid schemes and cybercrime “failed the test for relevance under MRE 401” because “nothing in the documents” pertained to any “fact of consequence” in the propane contract dispute and those topics were “wholly unrelated to the contractual dispute at issue.” Affirmed.