Whether Open Meetings Act (OMA) violations were cured; Due process; Laches; Public policy & timing; Ripeness; Actual attorney fees under MCL 15.271(4); Estoppel; Order enforcing the judgment; Whether the trial court had the authority to invalidate licenses issued as part of a settlement agreement

In this consolidated case, on remand from the Supreme Court to consider, among other things, whether the open meetings held by the defendant-Review Committee cured prior OMA violations, the court held that (1) defendants and intervening defendants did not identify “any errors warranting relief in the trial court’s resolution of the OMA claims[,]” (2) the trial court did not err in determining “that plaintiffs were not entitled to actual attorney fees under the OMA[,]” (3) plaintiffs did not identify “any errors warranting relief in the trial court’s resolution of their claims involving due process[,]” but (4) the trial court abused its discretion in ruling that defendant-City violated its 4/20 Opinion and Order by reissuing the medical marijuana “licenses to intervening defendants and scheduling a show-cause hearing.” Thus, the court affirmed in Docket Nos. 355989, 355994, 355995, 356005, 356011, 356017, 356023, vacated in Docket Nos. 359269 and 359285, and remanded. The City and other appellants argued “that the trial court lacked the authority to invalidate the Review Committee’s decision because the Review Committee reenacted any decisions made in violation of the OMA from March to [7/19] at the open meetings held on” 9/20/19 and 10/7/19. The court disagreed. “The Review Committee conducting two meetings open to the public, which lasted a combined total of fifty-nine (59) minutes, after conducting 13 substantive closed meetings does not, on the record before us, cure the OMA violations.” The trial court did not err when it concluded “that the Review Committee had not reenacted the relevant decisions and granted” plaintiff-Happy Trails “summary disposition on its claim requesting the invalidation of the Review Committee’s decisions.” The City and others also maintained “that the trial court erred when it invalidated the scores and rankings for the individual applicants because those scores were not made at the closed meetings and were not subject to invalidation under the OMA.” But the court held that “the trial court had the authority to invalidate those decisions as decisions that were not made in compliance with the OMA.” The intervening defendants appealed “the trial court’s order invalidating the City’s decision to reissue licenses to them as part of a settlement agreement” they entered into with the City in a different case. The court concluded “the trial court abused its discretion by invalidating the City’s decision to reissue the licenses and scheduling a show-cause hearing.”