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.