Absolute immunity under MCR 9.125 (related to Attorney Grievance Commission (AGC) proceedings); Custom-or-policy exception in Smith v Department of Pub Health & Mays v Governor; Gross negligence exception of the Governmental Tort Liability Act (GTLA); MCL 691.1407(2); 42 USC § 1983; Eleventh Amendment immunity; Amendment to complaint; Attorney Discipline Board (ADB)

The court concluded the Court of Claims did not err in granting defendants summary disposition because they were entitled to immunity under MCR 9.125 as “to plaintiff’s claims of gross negligence and violations of his constitutional due-process rights. Neither the custom-or-policy exception of Smith nor the statutory gross-negligence exception” applied. Further, defendants-Armitage and Goetz were entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity as to plaintiff’s § 1983 claim. Finally, he did not establish that he was “entitled to appellate relief on his claim that he should have been permitted to amend his complaint.” As to plaintiff’s “claims under the state constitution, [he] posits that an exception to the absolute immunity of MCR 9.125 exists under the principle espoused in Smith and Mays: that a state defendant may not claim immunity under a statute (or presumably court rule) when the plaintiff alleges that the state has violated its own constitution.” Plaintiff acknowledged “that this principle has not been expressly applied to MCR 9.125, but notes that the Michigan Supreme Court has made clear that the Michigan Constitution has primacy over laws establishing governmental immunity, and consequently argues that the absolute immunity of MCR 9.125 must yield” here. But the court found that he “failed to bring to light either a substantive or procedural due process claim with respect to defendants’ inactions.” He did not cite any “legal authority for the proposition that such governmental inaction, absent deliberate indifference that represents official policy, qualifies as a ‘custom or policy’ that would deprive defendants of the absolute immunity allowed by MCR 9.125.” Plaintiff next argued that MCR 9.125 immunity was “inapplicable under the gross negligence exception of the GTLA, MCL 691.1407(2), as to his claims against Armitage and Goetz.” The court held that “even if the statutory exception applied as a limitation on the scope of MCR 9.125,” he did not plead “facts constituting gross negligence.” Rather, he pled, “at most, intentional torts for which no exception to the governmental immunity provided by MCR 9.125, or by the GTLA, exists.” As to his § 1983 claims, the court concluded plaintiff failed to show “that a viable exception applied to the immunity provided by MCR 9.125 or the Eleventh Amendment.”