Order for involuntary mental health treatment; Mootness; An issue “publicly significant, likely to recur,” yet may evade judicial review; In re Tchakarova

In an order in lieu of granting leave to appeal, the court reversed the Court of Appeals holding that this case was moot (see eJournal # 83763 in the 6/12/25 edition), and remanded to that court for plenary consideration. It noted that involuntary “mental health treatment orders under Michigan law are inherently limited in duration. Initial orders for involuntary mental health treatment that include combined hospitalization and outpatient treatment may not exceed 180 days.” Their brief duration “means that appellate review will frequently occur after the challenged order has expired by its own terms.” While an issue is moot, it is justiciable if it “is one of public significance that is likely to recur, yet may evade judicial review.” The court found that, like the 90-day order in Tchakarova, “the involuntary mental health order at issue in this case presents an issue of public significance and the limited duration of the 180-day order ‘all but guaranteed that no meaningful judicial review of the order could ever be conducted before the order expired.’” But the Court of Appeals dismissed respondent’s appeal of the 7/24 involuntary mental health treatment order as moot, determining that the order would “‘not, in a practical sense, evade appellate review, given respondent’s appeal of the probate court’s” 1/25 order. Yet it later also dismissed respondent’s appeal of the 1/25 order as moot. “This pattern of successive orders demonstrates precisely the capable of repetition, yet evading review circumstance that justifies an exception to mootness. The Court of Appeals holding would effectively immunize short-duration involuntary treatment orders from appellate scrutiny whenever a subsequent order is issued.” The court held that the mootness exception applied to the order at issue, and the “Court of Appeals erred in concluding otherwise.”