Security for costs; MCR 2.109(A) & MCR 2.109(B)(1); Hall v Harmony Hills Rec, Inc; Indigency exception; Gaffier v St Johns Hosp; Appellate remand compliance; Law of the case

The court held that the trial court again erred by requiring plaintiff to post a $5,000 security bond and dismissing her PIP action when it failed to make the specific findings and balancing analysis required under MCR 2.109 and the court’s prior remand instructions. Plaintiff sought PIP benefits after a motor-vehicle accident, and this was the second appeal involving dismissal of her case for failure to post a $5,000 bond. In the first appeal, the court reversed because the trial court imposed a bond “without making the factual findings required to support the imposition of such bond.” On remand, the trial court again ordered plaintiff to post the same $5,000 bond, plaintiff did not do so because of insufficient financial resources, and the trial court again dismissed the case with prejudice. In this appeal, the court held that MCR 2.109 requires that, when indigence is raised, the trial court must expressly consider whether the party “is financially unable to furnish a security bond.” The court next held that the trial court was required to apply the balancing framework adopted from Hall and Gaffier, under which there is “a strong preference for waiver of the bond where the indigent plaintiff’s pleadings show a ‘meritorious claim’” and only “‘few cases’” in which a financially unable plaintiff asserting a valid theory should be required to post security. The court held that the trial court’s statement that “logic and reason and fairness dictate” a $5,000 bond was inadequate because the lack of “specific findings or analysis precludes this Court from conducting a meaningful appellate review.” Reversed and remanded.