Limited license to enter adjoining property; MCL 600.2944; Construction access; Easement; Stay pending appeal; Mootness; Actual controversy; Barrow v Detroit Election Comm’n; Public-significance exception; Gleason v Kincaid

The court held that defendants’ appeal from an order granting plaintiff a limited construction-access license under MCL 600.2944 was moot. Plaintiff owned property adjoining defendants’ property and sought a limited license to enter defendants’ easement on vacated Walbridge Street during a renovation project. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court granted the license, but defendants obtained a stay pending appeal, and plaintiff completed the project through an alternative access route without entering defendants’ portion of the vacated street. The court held that the appeal was moot because “the license was never used” and the construction was complete, leaving “no license left to use, no ongoing entry to enjoin or permit, and no relief left” for the court to grant either party. The court also declined to apply the public-significance exception. It reasoned that disputes over MCL 600.2944 construction licenses are not “inherently incapable of appellate review,” as shown by defendants’ ability to obtain a stay, and that mootness resulted from a “case-specific factual development” rather than a structural timing problem likely to evade review. The court further held that the dispute was private and fact-specific because it involved particular adjoining owners, a particular construction project, and a particular unused license. Dismissed.