Venue; Multiclaim tort actions; MCL 600.1641(2); Tort venue; MCL 600.1629; Attorney General venue statutes; MCL 14.102; MCL 600.1631(a); “Original injury”; Dimmitt & Owens Fin’l, Inc v Deloitte & Touche (ISC), LLC; Conversion; Medicaid overpayments

The court held that MCL 600.1629 controlled venue because the DHHS pled multiple claims and at least one sounded in tort, but that venue was proper in Ingham County because that is where the DHHS suffered the original injury from defendants’ alleged conversion of Medicaid overpayments. The DHHS, represented by the Attorney General, sued defendants to recover alleged Medicaid overpayments and asserted claims including common-law and statutory conversion, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and enforcement of a final agency order. The court first held that MCL 600.1641(2) required application of the tort venue statute because the DHHS pled “more than 1 cause of action” and “1 of the causes of action is based on tort.” And under that statute, venue “shall be determined” under MCL 600.1629. The court rejected reliance on the Attorney General venue statutes because MCL 14.102 and MCL 600.1631(a) are permissive, while MCL 600.1641(2) is mandatory and “demands the application of MCL 600.1629 over” the AG venue statutes here. But the court next held that the Court of Appeals erred by placing venue in Oakland County because MCL 600.1629 looks to where “the plaintiff suffered its first actual injury,” not where defendants were located when the alleged wrongdoing occurred. Applying Dimmitt, the court held that the injury from conversion was not defendants’ refusal to repay in Oakland County, but the DHHS’s “lack of possession and its concomitant inability to exercise control or dominion over the intangible electronic funds” at issue. Because the DHHS suffered that injury at its Ingham County headquarters, where it administers the Medicaid program, the “county in which the original injury occurred” was Ingham County. The Court of Appeals was affirmed in part, reversed in part, and the case remanded for entry of an order changing venue to the Ingham Circuit Court.

Justice Welch, concurring in part and dissenting in part, agreed with the majority that Ingham County was the proper venue under MCL 600.1629, but disagreed that the tort venue statutes displaced the Attorney General venue statutes. She reasoned that MCL 600.1641(2) did not “abrogate the Attorney General’s longstanding authority to file an action in Ingham County” under MCL 14.102 and MCL 600.1631, and that the statutes could be harmonized.

Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Zahra, also concurring in part and dissenting in part, agreed with the majority that MCL 600.1629 and MCL 600.1641(2) controlled venue and displaced the Attorney General venue statutes, but disagreed that Ingham County was the proper venue. She concluded that in a conversion case, the “original injury” occurs where the defendant wrongfully exercises dominion over the property, and because the alleged refusal to return the electronic funds occurred at defendants’ corporate office, “the ‘original injury’ occurred in Oakland County[.]”