This case involves plaintiffs who own a large office building and adjacent undeveloped land in Michigan suing defendant Leslie Dick and related entities and attorneys, alleging that Dick attempted to force a sale of the property through baseless litigation, threats, harassment, and the filing of lis pendens notices since 1986. The plaintiffs asserted a federal RICO claim along with various state-law claims such as tortious interference. The court indicated it would dismiss the RICO claim unless the plaintiffs cured identified pleading deficiencies within 30 days and would dismiss the state-law claims against defendants Evans, the Vestevich firm, and the Barbier firm due to the absence of an independent basis for federal jurisdiction over those parties. The core reasoning centered on deficiencies in the RICO pleading, including issues with how predicate acts were alleged, and the lack of supplemental jurisdiction once the federal claim was potentially dismissed.
The case concerned a motion to suppress evidence in a civil forfeiture action involving suspected drug activity at a residence, where police disguised as garbage collectors entered the property's backyard curtilage without a warrant to seize and search closed trash bags. The court granted the motion, ruling that the warrantless search and seizure violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the parallel provision of the Michigan Constitution. The core reasoning was that individuals retain a reasonable expectation of privacy in garbage located within the curtilage of their home, even when set out for collection, distinguishing the facts from Supreme Court precedent permitting such searches outside the curtilage. The court emphasized that the location on private premises, rather than at the curb, triggered constitutional protections against unreasonable intrusions.
The case involved a plaintiff who sued a city and one of its police officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the officer verbally and physically abused him during an arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol, violating his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights, and that city policies contributed to the violation. The court considered the defendants' motions for summary judgment. It granted summary judgment to the City of Dearborn Heights because the plaintiff failed to show any municipal policy or custom that caused the alleged constitutional deprivation. It denied summary judgment to the officer because genuine issues of material fact existed regarding whether the officer used excessive force, precluding judgment as a matter of law on the substantive due process claim.
This case involves a defamation lawsuit brought by a doctor against CBS over statements in a 1983 '60 Minutes' broadcast criticizing the care provided to a teenage patient who died of Reye’s Syndrome after police and hospital staff assumed a drug overdose instead of the correct diagnosis. After an initial grant of summary judgment to CBS was vacated on appeal following a change in Michigan defamation law, the court reconsidered the motions. The court determined that the plaintiff was a private figure rather than a limited-purpose public figure, so he needed only to prove falsity and negligence rather than actual malice, and material factual disputes existed on the negligence issue. It therefore denied CBS’s renewed summary judgment motion, granted the plaintiff leave to amend his complaint to add newly discovered facts, and denied his request for sanctions against the defendants.
This case is a class action brought by seamen who were injured or ill during employment on defendant vessels and received maintenance benefits but not unearned wages; they seek recovery of those wages as part of maritime maintenance and cure claims. The court addressed multiple motions, ultimately denying the defendants' motion for partial dismissal of claims accruing more than three years before the suit was filed. It reasoned that claims for unearned wages arise from the employment relationship and are contractual in nature rather than maritime torts, so they are not subject to the three-year statute of limitations in 46 U.S.C. App. § 763a. The court also denied reconsideration of the class certification, granted a protective order on discovery, and granted the plaintiffs' motion to compel discovery subject to that order.
The case involved a plaintiff terminated from employment after refusing a drug test, who filed state-court claims alleging racial discrimination from the testing program's impact on black employees, due process violations, and wrongful discharge. The defendant removed the case to federal court and moved for summary judgment, submitting evidence that the plaintiff was covered by a collective bargaining agreement with the UAW that included an exclusive grievance and arbitration process and a nondiscrimination clause. The court granted summary judgment, ruling that all claims were preempted by Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act because they were inextricably intertwined with interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement and thus required resolution under federal law rather than state law; the plaintiff had also failed to exhaust the agreement's grievance procedures or allege unfair union representation.