One Court of Justice

In Angelucci v Dart Properties Inc, the Court of Appeals reluctantly reversed the trial court’s order granting the defendant’s motion to change venue to Macomb County in this multiclaim landlord-tenant dispute, following Provider Creditors Committee v United American Health Care Corp, 738 NW2d 770 (Mich Ct App, 2007).  But the opinion called for a special panel to review the court’s decision in Provider Creditors.  Specifically, the court took issue with the Provider Creditors panel’s interpretation of MCL 600.1641(2).  In its view, Provider Creditors improperly limited the application of subsection (2) to only tort claims asserting personal injury.    Read more »

 In Caron v Cranbrook Educational Community, the Court of Appeals found that a “permanent room partition” (PRP) used in an art classroom was an improvement to real property.  Therefore, the plaintiff’s claim was barred by a six-year statute of limitations under Michigan law for injury from improvements to real property.  Read more »

The Michigan Supreme Court denied a motion to add an issue in Bailey v. Schaaf, No. 144055.

The Court of Appeals published its per curiam decision in Acorn Investment Co. v. Michigan Basic Prop Ins. Ass’n, where it concluded that an appraisal of a property loss pursuant to an insurance policy does not constitute a verdict for purposes of the imposition of case evaluation sanctions.  Specifically, in this case, the insurer had denied coverage for a fire loss and the insured had filed suit.  The trial court awarded partial summary disposition to the insured, finding the loss to be covered under the policy.  The parties then agreed to submit the amount of the loss to be determined by an appraisal panel as provided by the policy.  That panel came back with a value that was higher than the case evaluation award that had been accepted by the insured and rejected by the insurer.  The trial court granted a motion to enter judgment at the appraisal amount, but declined to award case evaluation sanctions to the insured, finding that the appraisal was not a “verdict” and thus did not trigger the award of sanctions under MCR 2.403(O).  The Court of Appeals agreed and affirmed the trial court’s refusal to award sanctions.  It found that appraisal effectively constitutes arbitration, and that case law has established that judgments entered pursuant to arbitration or settlement are not “verdicts” for the purposes of case evaluation sanctions.

In Hunt v Drielick, a consolidated appeal, the Court of Appeals considered whether a “business use” exclusion in the trucking company’s insurance policy justified denial of coverage.  The insurance company had issued a non-trucking or “bobtail” policy that only covered damages incurred when the truck was not engaged in the business of hauling a trailer or under lease to a carrier.  In this case, the accident occurred when the trucking company’s employee was on his way to a yard to pick up a load of cargo.  The insurance company denied coverage based on the business use exclusion, claiming that the truck was under lease to or being used in the business of the yard at the time of the accident.  The insurance policy also listed the trucking company employee involved in the accident as an excluded driver.

The trial court held that the insurance company improperly denied coverage.  The trial court found that the named driver exclusion failed to comport with statutory requirements.  The trial court also found that the business use exclusion was ambiguous.  The Court of Appeals disagreed, and reasoned that under Michigan law “a factual question regarding the applicability of the plan language of an insurance policy ‘to specific circumstances does not render the policy language ambiguous.’”  The Court of Appeals found there was an issue of fact both as to whether there was a lease agreement between the trucking company and the yard, and whether the truck was being used for a business purpose at the time of the accident.  Accordingly, the Court of Appeals remanded the case in order for the trial court to take evidence on this issue.  The Court of Appeals affirmed, however, the trial court’s holding that the named driver exclusion was invalid because it failed to satisfy statutory requirements. 

The defendant in People v. Franklin had been convicted by the trial court of indecent exposure and aggravated indecent exposure, and was sentenced for the latter crime as a sexual delinquent.  Following remand by the Michigan Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals vacated its original opinion.  In this new opinion, the Court of Appeals held that the trial court was required to conduct a separate hearing regarding the defendant’s sexual delinquency after he entered a plea of nolo contendere to aggravated indecent exposure.  A mere examination of the defendant’s criminal history is insufficient to satisfy the hearing requirement.  In addition, the defendant’s conviction of both aggravated indecent exposure and indecent exposure violated double jeopardy.  The Court of Appeals therefore affirmed the defendant’s conviction for aggravated indecent exposure, but vacated both his conviction for indecent exposure and his sexual delinquency sentencing enhancement.

In People v. Collins, the Court of Appeals upheld several drug-related convictions against the defendant, but vacated his conviction of delivering 50 to 450 grams of heroin.  There was no evidence in the record that the defendant delivered more than 50 grams of heroin in a single transaction.  The relevant statute defines “delivery” using the term “transfer” in its singular form.  There are four different delivery charges for distinct quantity groups, each with a different degree of punishment.  Therefore, the Court of Appeals held that the defendant’s separate heroin deliveries could not be aggregated, and the court vacated his conviction for delivery of 50 to 450 grams of heroin.

The Court of Appeals upheld the defendant’s other convictions for possession and conspiracy to delivery heroin and cocaine.  While the defendant contended that the officers who searched his car were acting outside their jurisdiction, the Court of Appeals noted that this statutory violation was not necessarily unconstitutional, and therefore the statutory violation did not automatically trigger the exclusionary rule.  The Court of Appeals further held that the officers had reasonable suspicion to search the defendant’s car, the defendant was not deprived of his constitutional rights, and his counsel was not ineffective.  However, because the sentences for these offenses were based on the vacated conviction, the Court of Appeals remanded for resentencing.

 In Canvasser Heritage, LLC v Fifth Third Bank, the Court of Appeals held that the defendant bank could foreclose by advertisment on a mortgage despite its previous action to recover on related guaranties.  Because a guaranty is a debt separate from the indebtedness secured by the mortgage, MCL 600.3204 does prohibit an action on the guaranty from proceeding simultaneously with foreclosure by advertisement. Read more »

 The United States Supreme Court held, in Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455, that a sentencing scheme mandating life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.  In People v. Carp, the Michigan Court of Appeals held that this rule would apply retroactively to all cases either currently pending or on direct review but not to cases on collateral review, like Carp’s.  The Court of Appeals also noted that under the rule in Miller, Michigan’s statutory provision mandating life imprisonment without parole for juveniles convicted of first-degree murder was unconstitutional and encouraged the legislature to address the issue.  Read more »

The Michigan Supreme Court closed one file for failure to pay filing fees.  In Mayor of the City of Cadillac v. Blackburn, No. 146104, the Court, in lieu of granting leave to appeal, reversed the Court of Appeals’ order–which had dismissed the Mayor’s application for leave to appeal for lack of jurisdiction–and directed the Court of Appeals to consider whether to grant the application on its merits.  The Court also stayed the trial-court proceedings pending completion of the appeal.