Providing summaries of opinions as they are released from the Michigan Supreme Court, Michigan Court of Appeals (published & unpublished), and selected U.S. Sixth Circuit. Over 60,000 cases summarized to date.
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Motion to intervene in a federal criminal case by a state criminal defendant; Alleged First Amendment right to access a sealed possibly exculpatory “cooperation agreement”; Application of the “experience & logic” test; Press-Enter Co v Superior Ct (Press-Enter II); Whether there is a “widespread, historical tradition of public access to cooperation agreements”; Whether “public access plays a significant positive role in the functioning of the particular process in question”; In re Morning Song Bird Food Litig; In re Search of Fair Fin
The court held that the proposed intervenor (Swain, a defendant in a state criminal case) failed to show a qualified First Amendment right to access a sealed document in federal criminal defendant-Kincaide’s case that might contain a cooperation agreement because “no qualified First Amendment right of access attaches to cooperation agreements[.]” Kincaide pled guilty in federal court to three firearms offenses. A few weeks later, Swain moved to intervene in Kincaide’s case, seeking to unseal a document that could contain a cooperation agreement that Swain could use in his own state case. The district court denied his motion. On appeal, the court noted that the threshold issue was whether Swain had “a qualified First Amendment right to access Kincaide’s sealed plea supplement—in other words, whether the ‘experience and logic’ test supports recognizing a public right of access to cooperation agreements.” The court applied the Press-Enter II test and considered “(1) whether the proceeding or material has ‘historically been open to the press and the general public,’ and (2) whether ‘public access plays a significant positive role in the functioning of the particular process in question.’” It reviewed case law and held that “there is no widespread, historical tradition of public access to cooperation agreements.” It acknowledged that the Supreme Court’s “cases have provided little guidance on how the logic prong weighs the benefits of access against competing concerns.” The court concluded public access to cooperation agreements could endanger those who cooperate with the government and could interfere with government investigations. It noted that it has ruled in prior cases that “logic did not support a right of access to either search-warrant documents or PSR objections.” The court determined that public access would not play “‘a significant positive role in the functioning of the particular’” government processes. Affirmed.
Construction-contract dispute; Judicial admissions; Hilgendorf v St John Hosp & Med Ctr Corp; Pretrial conference; MCR 2.401(A); Scheduling conference; MCR 2.401(B)(1); Scheduling order; MCR 2.401(B)(2); Final pretrial conference; MCR 2.401(H)(2); The trial court’s pretrial statement; Kolton v Nassar; Memoranda having the effect of a court order; Kromat v Vestevich; Motion for default judgment; MCR 2.603(A) & (D)
The court held that the trial court abused its discretion by granting defendants’ motion for judicial admissions, entering judgment in their favor, and dismissing plaintiff’s complaint. Defendants hired plaintiff to build their house, but the project was never completed because of disagreements about the specifications of the build. Plaintiff sued, alleging (1) a construction lien on the property where the home was supposed to be built, and (2) breach of contract for failing to pay for completed work on the project. After a significant amount of discovery and litigation, the trial court ruled in defendants’ favor and dismissed the complaint. On appeal, the court first found that the trial court abused its discretion by considering defendants’ untimely affirmative defense on licensing, and by allowing them to supplement that same motion with the issue of judicial admissions and dismissing plaintiff’s claims without further factual discovery. When “the trial court heard arguments on the motion on licensing and then judicial admissions, it ruled as though there were no other alternatives to accepting both” plaintiff’s judicial-admissions defense to licensing and defendants’ “judicial-admissions argument and ultimately dismissing the entire case.” The court noted that a “more appropriate remedy would have been for the trial court to direct [defendants] to move for a default judgment, providing [plaintiff] with an opportunity to file a response to the motion for default judgment. The procedure that would follow a motion for default judgment would allow for fact finding on the specific paragraphs of” defendants’ answers that plaintiff argued were not admissions. Instead, it directed them “to brief an argument they failed to timely raise before trial, allowed them to file a motion, considered the motion without any further fact finding, and dismissed the case on these grounds.” The trial court also erred by “considering and partially denying [defendants’] earlier motion for a directed verdict. However, because that earlier iteration of the motion raised an untimely affirmative defense,” the court ultimately agreed “that denial of the directed verdict motion was appropriate.” And because it opined that “the trial court abused its discretion in allowing untimely arguments and defenses, which allowed it to dismiss” plaintiff’s claims, it declined “to consider the parties’ arguments raised on appeal regarding which specific paragraphs of” defendants’ answers were admitted. Reversed and remanded.
Child sexually abusive activity (CSAA) charge; Entrapment; People v Johnson; Inducement; Law enforcement use of untargeted reverse sting operations; People v Butler; People v Williams; Principle that merely presenting an opportunity to commit a crime is not entrapment; Government escalation & deception; Distinguishing People v Killian; Intent; How a “normally law-abiding person would react in similar circumstances”; People v Juillet; Reprehensible police conduct; People v Fabiano
Holding that defendant was not entrapped, the court affirmed his plea-based conviction of CSAA. He was also charged with using a computer to commit a crime, and accosting a child for immoral purposes, after he was arrested for soliciting a minor in a sex sting. He moved to dismiss the charges on the ground of entrapment. The trial court denied his motion, finding the police merely provided the opportunity for him “to commit criminal acts involving arranging to meet a 15-year-old minor for paid sexual activity and defendant willingly seized that opportunity.” On appeal, the court rejected his argument that his conviction should be vacated because he was entrapped. Law enforcement “merely presented defendant with the opportunity to commit the crime of which he was convicted. Law enforcement posed as a 15-year-old who was offering sexual acts in exchange for money, posted an advertisement on an adult-oriented website, and initially claimed to be old enough to post on the site. After defendant responded to the advertisement, [he] was clearly informed that the decoy was actually 15 years old.” Thus, he “was presented with an opportunity to either proceed with committing the relevant criminal acts or decline. Merely presenting an opportunity to commit a crime is not entrapment.” In addition, unlike in “Killian, law enforcement did not have any information about defendant before conducting the undercover operation.” The operation here was “more analogous to the undercover operations in Butler and Williams, where something illegal was made available for those seeking it to contact the undercover officer and offer to purchase it.” That was “precisely what occurred in this case. Moreover, government escalation of the defendant’s criminal culpability is only one factor and is not itself dispositive on the issue of entrapment. To the extent defendant argues that he was deceived, that fact by itself also does not establish entrapment.” Further, the trial court “did not err in its application of the legal framework for discerning whether entrapment occurred under the inducement prong of the test.” Finally, simply “presenting the opportunity to commit criminal acts in an untargeted fashion is not reprehensible conduct constituting entrapment.”
Court costs; MCL 769.1k(1)(b)(iii); Presumption statutes apply prospectively; Moot issues
Holding that the trial court ordered defendant-Wandolowski “to pay court costs without statutory authority to do so,” the court reversed the order for court costs and remanded for the trial court to refund the costs he paid. He pled guilty to misdemeanor assault and was sentenced to one year of probation. The trial court also ordered him “to pay $1,110 in court costs and a $500 fine.” He asserted it had no statutory authority to impose the court costs. When he pled “guilty, MCL 769.1k(1)(b)(iii), as amended by 2020 PA 151, was in effect[.]” It granted courts the authority to impose court costs until 10/1/22. On 10/7/22, “MCL 769.1k(1)(b)(iii), as amended by 2022 PA 199, went into effect, which changed the expiration date for the court’s authority from [10/1/22] to [5/1/24]. The trial ordered Wandolowski to pay” the court costs “two days after the provision authorizing these costs expired and four days before the amended law became effective.” Thus, the issue was whether the “Legislature intended for the amended statute to retroactively authorize trial courts to impose court costs during this gap.” The court noted that statutes “‘are presumed to apply prospectively unless the Legislature clearly manifests the intent for retroactive application.’” When it amended MCL 769.1k(1)(b)(iii) with 2022 PA 199, the Legislature “did not state an intent to apply the law retroactively.” But the court noted the “Legislature applied the statute retroactively when it amended the statute in 2014.” This showed that it “knows how to state its intent to provide for retroactive application of a statute, and it chose not to do so.” The court added that if it applied the amended statute “retroactively, it would allow the [trial] court to impose court costs when it was not explicitly authorized by law, which would also impact Wandolowski’s legal obligations without supporting statutory authority.” As to his other issues, given that he “successfully completed his probation and paid the fine imposed for the crime to which he” pled guilty, the court found his appellate arguments about his probation conditions and fine were moot.
Sentencing; Special conditions on supervised release; Whether special conditions improperly delegated judicial power to the probation officer
The court held that the district court did not improperly delegate its judicial authority by failing to cap required substance-abuse testing, by not specifying whether mental-health treatment was to be outpatient or inpatient, or by requiring participation “‘in a program of testing and/or treatment for drug and/or alcohol abuse’” in imposing special conditions on defendant-Vaughn’s supervised release. The first supervised release special condition he complained of provided that “Vaughn ‘shall participate in a program of testing and/or treatment for drug and/or alcohol abuse as directed by the probation officer until such time as the defendant is released from the program by the probation officer.’” He claimed that this gave “the probation officer the power to determine drug-testing frequency and whether he must receive alcohol treatment.” He asserted that the judge’s failure to cap the number of tests constituted an improper delegation of judicial power. But the court explained that “testing caps apply only to mandatory conditions—not special conditions. . . . When district courts decide to impose drug testing through a special condition, they fulfill their statutory and Article III duties so long as the court ‘decide[s] whether treatment is required.’” Thus, they are permitted to “leave program implementation to probation officers.” The court noted that courts “satisfy the special-condition requirement by employing the triggering ‘shall participate’ language within the condition, requiring defendants to participate in substance-abuse testing and treatment.” Additionally, the district court “created a safeguard. If Vaughn considers probation’s drug-testing schedule too burdensome, the district court ‘would be happy to consider giving the probation office some guidance on that when it comes up.’” As to alcohol treatment, he did “not cite authority to support his treatment-specification claim nor show how a ‘generic substance-abuse program would impose any significant burdens on him because it covered alcohol-abuse treatment.’” Reviewing his claim as to the second special condition concerning mental health treatment programs for plain error, the court noted “circuits are split on this inpatient-outpatient claim” and such a split precludes a plain error finding. So does the absence of binding case law, and the court has none “holding that a district court cannot allow the probation officer to decide whether inpatient treatment will be required.” The court found persuasive an unpublished opinion in a case that mirrored this one, which held “that this inpatient-outpatient claim does not overcome the plain-error standard.” Affirmed.
Total disability benefits; The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA); Whether defendant-insurer was required to pay plaintiff-insured 24 months of additional disability benefits under the contract; Okuno v Reliance Standard Life Ins; Whether plaintiff’s physical disabilities no longer made her “totally disabled”
[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] The court held that the two-year mental health limitation in defendant-Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company’s total disability policy was improperly applied to discontinue plaintiff-McEachin’s benefits where “physical conditions alone” entitled her to disability coverage before 4/21—“the mere presence of additional mental-health issues” did not support applying the limitation. McEachin was injured in a car accident and Reliance began paying her total disability benefits under a policy governed by ERISA in 2017. The policy defined “Total Disability” as the inability to “‘perform the material duties’ of her job[.]” Reliance stopped paying her after concluding that she was no longer totally disabled. McEachin sent Reliance medical documentation asserting that her “depression, migraines, and chronic pain showed she was still totally disabled.” Reliance acknowledged that she still could not work full-time, but denied benefits based on the policy’s 24-month limitation for mental issues that had contributed to the total disability. She sued under ERISA. The district court agreed that she was no longer totally physically disabled as of 4/21 but ruled that her “mental-health disability entitled her to 24 months of additional benefits starting” at that point. Reliance claimed that the district court misinterpreted the relationship between the physical/mental components in the policy and erred by ruling that it owed McEachin 24 months of benefits. The court noted that it had previously interpreted much the same policy in Okuno, where it held that Reliance was required to determine whether the insured’s “physical condition rendered her totally disabled” without considering the presence of mental-health conditions. Thus, the court asked “whether McEachin’s total disability exists without regard to her mental-health conditions. . . . If it does, if in other words her physical disabilities alone justify disability benefits, the mental-health 24-month clock does not start.” Applying this test, the court concluded “the 24-month limitations period in McEachin’s policy began to run in [4/21]. Until then, McEachin’s physical disability alone justified benefits.” Turning to her cross-appeal, the court rejected McEachin’s argument that the district court erred by ruling that her physical disabilities no longer rendered her totally disabled in 4/21. But it ordered the district court on remand to consider whether she may use post-4/21 evidence “to show that the 24-month clock should have been tolled at certain points between [4/21] and [4/23], and that her eligibility for benefits thus may go beyond” 4/23. Vacated in part, affirmed in part, and remanded.
One-year notice or filing period following accrual of a claim against a state entity; MCL 600.6431(1); Whether Christie v Wayne State Univ should be applied retroactively to post-Tyrrell v University of MI/pre-Christie cases; League of Women Voters of MI v Secretary of State
The court held “that Christie does not apply retroactively to circuit court cases that were in a procedural posture wherein Tyrrell’s interpretation of MCL 600.6431 was the law in Michigan during the one-year notice or filing period following accrual of a claim.” Because that was the situation with plaintiff’s case against defendant-DHHS, the court reversed and remanded. The resolution of this appeal hinged “on whether Christie must be applied retroactively such that plaintiffs whose cases were governed by Tyrrell during the relevant notice period are subject to dismissal for failing to comply with the one-year notice or filing requirement of MCL 600.6431(1).” The court first concluded “that the holding in Christie that a party suing the state must comply with MCL 600.6431(1) even if the action is pursued in circuit court constituted a new rule or principle of law as to those cases filed when the holding in Tyrrell constituted binding precedent. It is clear that Christie overruled precedent established in Tyrrell, and although our Supreme Court in Christie, ‘expressed that it was giving effect to the intent of the Legislature as inferred from the text of MCL 600.6431(1), the correction of the erroneous interpretation by the panel in Tyrrell effectively announced a new rule of law as to those cases to which Tyrrell applied.’” The court held that the “precedent set by Tyrrell was clear and unambiguous, i.e., there is no need to comply with MCL 600.6431(1) in a circuit court action against the state, and the ruling in Christie was just as clear and unambiguous, i.e., compliance with MCL 600.6431(1) is required regardless of the judicial forum. The distinction between these two holdings was not vague, hazy, or indefinite; rather, Christie reflected a 180-degree change in the law, in relation to the governing law defined in Tyrrell.” Finding the threshold issue was fully satisfied, the court proceeded with its examination of the three pertinent factors from League of Women Voters. As “to the purpose to be served by the new rule, the Christie Court did not specifically engage in an assessment of the purpose to be served by its ruling outside of simply determining the intent of the Legislature and giving effect to that intent.” Finally, as “to the effect of retroactivity on the administration of justice, we conclude that this factor strongly favors plaintiff considering that retroactive application of Christie’s construction of MCL 600.6431(1) would be patently unjust and inequitable.” In sum, the court concluded “that upon weighing the three pertinent factors, they weigh against applying Christie retroactively to cases in which plaintiffs reasonably relied on Tyrrell in making the decision not to provide the notice in MCL 600.6431(1).” Thus, it concluded “that because Tyrrell, despite being wrongly decided, was binding precedent at the relevant time in this case, the decision in Christie was a new rule of law as to it and similarly-situated cases.” It further held “that plaintiff’s reliance interest was such that the Christie decision should not be applied retroactively as to her.”
Termination under §§ 19b(3)(c)(i), (g), & (j); Principle that a trial court may not terminate a parent’s parental rights solely because the parent was a victim of domestic violence; In re Plump; Consideration of whether the parent’s own behaviors harmed the children or exposed them to harm; In re Jackisch/Stamm-Jackisch
Noting that the trial court did not expressly state the grounds on which it terminated respondent-mother’s parental rights, the court held that it clearly erred by finding “‘at least one’” of the grounds requested by the DHHS was supported by clear and convincing evidence. Her rights were terminated on the basis of substance abuse, domestic violence, and neglect. On appeal, the court found that the trial court erred by finding that a statutory ground for termination was met. As to § (c)(i), the record did not support that “mother’s own behaviors exposed the children to harm, [or] that the domestic violence existed and would continue.” As to § (g), “even without evidence of steady employment, the record does not indicate a failure to provide proper care or custody.” And as to § (j), the record was “devoid of evidence of physical harm to the children and while there [was] some record evidence of psychological harm, [it was] only as to the children observing the abuse of their mother, and the maternal aunt does not have them in therapy.” Reversed and remanded.