No-Fault Act (NFA); Violation of the trial court’s order compelling the production of letters of authority for plaintiff to act on behalf of the estate; Dean v Tucker (Dean factors); Personal representative (PR)

The court vacated the trial court’s order dismissing the case with prejudice for plaintiff-Collins repeatedly violating its order compelling the production of letters of authority for him to act on behalf of the estate, without providing reasoning or evaluating lesser sanctions, and remanded. Collins, in his capacity as PR of the estate of the decedent, sued defendant-Allstate, alleging breach of contract for refusing to pay benefits under the Michigan NFA. “The trial court’s order of dismissal with prejudice merely stated that the case was dismissed for ‘failure to provide Letters of Authority pursuant to the Court’s [7/9/21] Order.’” It was “undisputed that Collins did not comply with the trial court’s order granting Allstate’s second motion to compel letters of authority. But in dismissing Collins’s case with prejudice, the trial court never ‘explain[ed] its reasons for imposing such a grave sanction in order to allow for meaningful appellate review.’” The court held that the trial court “did not explain why dismissal with prejudice was a more just sanction than the less severe sanction of dismissal without prejudice. The trial court also made no factual findings about whether Collins’s conduct was willful and deliberate, or whether Collins’s noncompliance with discovery orders prejudiced Allstate—findings that could have supported the drastic sanction of dismissal with prejudice.” Allstate asserted that “although the trial court analyzed none of the Dean factors before dismissing the case, dismissal was clearly appropriate if the trial court had considered the factors. Allstate then goes on to, itself, analyze the Dean factors and explain why, having considered the factors, the ‘only appropriate sanction was dismissal with prejudice.’” The court concluded that while it appreciated “Allstate’s well-reasoned analysis, our duty is to review the trial court’s reasoning, not a litigant’s view of what the trial court might have found had the court provided any record of its decision. The trial court abused its discretion by failing to provide any reasoning or consideration of lesser sanctions on the record. On remand, ‘[t]he record should reflect that that the trial court gave careful consideration to the factors involved and considered all its options in determining what sanction was just and proper in the context of the case before it.’”