Alleged violation of the Open Meetings Act (OMA); Judicial interpretation of statutes; The public’s right to “address” public bodies under the OMA; MCL 15.263(5)

The court held that the trial court did not err by granting defendants-Michigan House of Representative and Senate summary disposition of plaintiffs-advocacy groups’ lawsuit concerning the right to “address” public bodies under the OMA. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief alleging defendants violated the OMA by not letting them speak in opposition to proposed legislation being discussed at several meetings. The court rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the trial court erred by concluding that the right to “address” a public body under MCL 15.263(5) can be satisfied through oral and written submissions. As an initial matter, it noted what the trial court did not decide and what was not at issue on appeal, before explaining that “plaintiffs’ challenge is solely to the trial court’s interpretation of the term ‘address’ in MCL 15.263(5).” Turning to the merits, it then noted that plaintiffs merely asserted “it was ‘plainly understood by everyone involved’ that public address under MCL 15.263(5) means only oral address by members of the public present at the meeting.” They essentially argued “that the word ‘address’ in the statute has acquired a particular technical meaning or has become a term of art.” However, they provided “no legal support for that assertion,” and the court found it “generally unpersuasive.” Plaintiffs also argued “that the Legislature indicated that it understood the word ‘address’ to refer only to oral address when it amended the OMA in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.” But the Legislature “merely added a provision to the OMA governing the conduct of electronic meetings.” This provision “provides guidance for a public body seeking to permit oral public comment at an electronic meeting. We decline to read [it] as proof of the Legislature’s intent when interpreting a different statutory provision that was enacted decades earlier.” In the “absence of any evidence that the Legislature intended a particular definition for the word ‘address’ in MCL 15.263(5), or evidence that the word has become a legal term of art, or evidence that defining the word to include written communication would be at odds with the purposes of the OMA, we see no reason why the word should not be given its plain and ordinary meaning.” Thus, it affirmed “the trial court’s interpretation of MCL 15.263(5).” Finally, the court stressed “that, contrary to plaintiffs’ grim portent that this holding will enable all public bodies across the state to dispense with public comment altogether, we do not hold that a public body complies with the OMA by accepting written communications only. . . . We merely decline plaintiffs’ request to interpret MCL 15.263(5) in a manner that would, in all circumstances, preclude the acceptance of written communications in lieu of oral communications, or that at least would preclude a court from considering that acceptance when analyzing a challenge to a public body under the OMA.”