Ralph McKenzie Freeman

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.

propertycriminal lawprocedurebusiness & regulatory

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.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

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.

civil rightsprocedurecriminal law

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.

free speechproceduretorts & liability

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.

labor & employmentproceduretorts & liability

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.

labor & employmentcivil rights

This case was a tax refund action in which the plaintiffs sought to recover taxes paid on a lump-sum distribution from an employer profit-sharing plan received after the employee was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and stopped working. The court granted the government’s motion for summary judgment and denied the plaintiffs’ cross-motion, ruling that the $60,439 distribution was includible in gross income. The core reasoning was that the profit-sharing plan did not qualify as an accident or health plan under 26 U.S.C. § 105(e) because it contained no provisions for compensating specific injuries or losses and did not calculate payments with reference to the nature of the disability independent of the employee’s absence from work.

taxes

The case involved the EEOC's Title VII lawsuit against Star Tool & Die Works alleging a pattern and practice of discrimination against Black and female applicants for hourly positions since 1967, plus specific failures to hire three named women and retaliation against two of them, based on charges filed in 1979. The defendants moved for summary judgment on grounds of laches due to the EEOC's 7.5-year delay in filing suit. The court granted the motion after finding the delay unreasonable, including a largely unexplained 21-month period to prepare a litigation memorandum that exceeded agency guidelines, and that the delay caused undue prejudice through lost personnel records after the business closed and sold its assets, plus the death or unavailability of key witnesses and putative victims. The court applied the two-prong laches test from Eleventh Circuit precedent requiring both inexcusable delay and prejudice, and determined no genuine issues of material fact existed on these points.

labor & employmentcivil rightsprocedure

This case arose from a workplace injury to plaintiff Glessie Eads, who slipped on a conveyor system connected to a folder-gluer machine; she sued the machine's manufacturer (Simon) and the conveyor's manufacturer/installer (Automated) for negligence and breach of warranties. Automated then filed a third-party complaint against Eads's employer (Westvaco) seeking contribution on an intentional-tort theory and indemnification based on an alleged agreement to install safety walkways. The court granted Westvaco's motion to dismiss the third-party claims. It held that the allegations failed to meet Michigan's intentional-tort exception to the Workers' Disability Compensation Act's exclusivity provision under either the substantial-certainty test or the statutory requirement of a deliberate act specifically intended to cause injury. It further held that indemnification was unavailable because the underlying complaint alleged active negligence by Automated rather than solely passive or vicarious fault.

labor & employmenttorts & liabilityprocedure

This case involves a lawsuit brought by the personal representative of Joyce Ann Grant's estate against various defendants, including police officers and city entities, alleging negligence and a civil rights violation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The action was removed from state court to federal court, prompting the plaintiff to move for remand on the grounds that state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over the federal claim and the complaint primarily involves state law issues. The court denied the motion to remand, holding that the plaintiff failed to demonstrate any authority for remanding an otherwise properly removed case merely due to concurrent jurisdiction. The reasoning centered on the removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1441, which allows removal unless expressly prohibited by Congress, and the majority view that concurrent jurisdiction alone does not bar removal.

civil rightsprocedure

This case involved six former employees of Gold Bond Building Products suing for wrongful discharge, impairment of economic opportunities, and outrageous conduct after being fired for alleged strike misconduct, including picket line activity and a parade float, during union contract negotiations. The court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss all claims. It held that the state-law claims were preempted by the National Labor Relations Act because the conduct was arguably protected or prohibited under federal labor law and had already been addressed by the NLRB in the employer's favor, depriving the court of subject matter jurisdiction under Garmon preemption principles. The court also found that the impairment claim failed to state a recognized cause of action under Michigan law.

labor & employmentprocedure

In this case, a Peruvian national who had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute and completed his two-year sentence moved under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to vacate the conviction, arguing that the plea was involuntary because he had not been advised of deportation consequences and that his counsel had rendered ineffective assistance by failing to warn him about immigration ramifications. The district court denied the motion. Although § 2255 relief is unavailable to a person no longer in custody, the court considered the claim under the All Writs Act; it held that deportation is a collateral rather than direct consequence of the plea, so neither the court nor counsel was required to advise the defendant of it under Rule 11, and the record showed counsel had in fact informed him of the possibility of deportation without making misleading assurances.

immigrationcriminal lawprocedure

This case is a defamation lawsuit brought by physician Carl Pesta and his wife against CBS over two statements in a 1983 "60 Minutes" segment titled "Tragic Assumptions," which described the death of a teenager from Reye's Syndrome after police and emergency-room doctors allegedly made misdiagnoses. The district court addressed pending motions, including the defendants' motion for summary judgment, after previously determining that Michigan law required the plaintiff to prove actual malice by clear and convincing evidence because the broadcast concerned a matter of public interest. The court granted summary judgment to CBS, holding that the plaintiff had not produced evidence from which a jury could find that the defendants knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard of their truth. The court rejected arguments that editing decisions or failure to investigate further constituted actual malice.

free speechtorts & liabilityprocedure

The case concerned whether Terry Irene Guild could be compelled to provide further grand jury testimony about her husband's narcotics trafficking after she married him and invoked spousal privilege. The court held that the privilege against adverse spousal testimony applied to bar compulsion of such testimony, including regarding events before the marriage, where there was no showing of a sham marriage. It reasoned that the privilege exists to protect marital harmony under common law principles as interpreted in Trammel v. United States and similar cases, rejecting a broad exception for pre-marital matters. The court further ruled that any Fifth Amendment self-incrimination claims must be raised on a question-by-question basis rather than as a blanket refusal.

criminal lawfamily lawprocedure

The case involved a plaintiff seeking judicial review of the Secretary of Health and Human Services' denial of his application for disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income benefits, which claimed disability due to a back problem since September 1983. The district court, reviewing the administrative law judge's decision under the substantial evidence standard, determined that the ALJ erred in concluding the plaintiff could perform light work by misclassifying certain aptitudes as transferable skills and finding a skill transferable only to a job the plaintiff was incapable of performing. As a result, the court held that the applicable grid rules directed a finding of disability and vacated the Secretary's decision, remanding the matter for an award of benefits.

healthcarefederal power

This case concerned a claim by Can-Am Engineering Co. against Henderson Glass, Inc. under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act for distributing a 1983 price-list flyer that included a photograph of Can-Am's seven-sided hub wire wheel cover, which Can-Am alleged created a false impression that Henderson sold its product. Can-Am had abandoned its common-law trademark infringement and unfair competition counts and proceeded solely on the Lanham Act claim. After a bench trial, the court determined that Can-Am had not established secondary meaning in the hub design before Henderson's use of the photograph, and therefore could not prevail on its statutory claim.

business & regulatory

This case involves the United States suing to recover triple damages plus interest from defendant Michael J. Swanson, D.O., a recipient of scholarship funds under the National Health Service Corps Scholarship Program, for allegedly breaching his contract by failing to begin his required period of obligated service in a health manpower shortage area after completing medical training. The court considered the government's motion for summary judgment and addressed the defendant's affirmative defenses, including estoppel based on alleged government misrepresentations about obtaining a deferment for a surgical residency, unconscionability, violation of due process rights, oral modification of the contract, and improper denial of a waiver. The court granted summary judgment to the United States, holding that the scholarship contract terms were clearly defined by statute and regulations, that estoppel cannot arise from unauthorized oral representations by government agents, and that the other defenses lacked merit given the explicit statutory limits on deferments and the requirement for Secretary approval consistent with program needs.

healthcarefederal power

The case involved a plaintiff seeking judicial review of the Secretary of Health and Human Services' denial of Social Security disability benefits under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g), based on claims of disability since 1981 due to heart condition, nervous condition, arthritis, diabetes, poor hearing, and high blood pressure. The administrative law judge found the plaintiff not disabled after applying the five-step sequential evaluation and medical-vocational guidelines, concluding that truck-driving skills were transferable to other work. The court limited its review to whether the Secretary's decision was supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole and determined that the plaintiff had met his burden to show inability to perform past relevant work, but the Secretary had not shown by substantial evidence that skills were transferable to the identified jobs. Accordingly, the court granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, vacated the Secretary's decision, and remanded for an award of benefits under Rule 201.02 of the grids.

healthcarefederal power

In Matco Tools Corp. v. Pontiac State Bank, Matco, as a named payee on an insurance settlement check made out to both a distributor and itself, sued the depository bank under UCC warranty and conversion theories after the distributor deposited the check over an allegedly forged endorsement using an authorization letter and stamp provided by Matco. The court granted the bank's motion for summary judgment on the warranty claims under UCC §§ 3-417(2)(b) and 4-207(2)(b), reasoning that those provisions do not create warranties running to a payee from a depository bank. On the conversion claim under UCC § 3-419(1)(c), the court denied summary judgment to both parties because genuine issues of material fact existed regarding whether the bank followed reasonable commercial standards when accepting the deposit, which would affect defenses under § 3-406. The opinion applies Michigan common law and UCC provisions governing negotiable instruments and bank collection practices.

business & regulatorytorts & liabilityprocedure

This case arose from an antitrust lawsuit by a group of Michigan chiropractors against medical and osteopathic associations, alleging violations of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act through a conspiracy to monopolize health care services, engage in group boycotts, and eliminate the chiropractic profession via ethical rules, refusals to deal, and critical statements. The court considered the plaintiffs' motion to strike affirmative defenses including good faith concern for public health, safety, welfare, and patient care, as well as laches and unclean hands. The court denied the motion to strike the public interest and patient care defenses, holding that Sherman Act Section 1 claims are analyzed under the rule of reason rather than per se illegality, making evidence of purpose and competitive effects relevant for trial. It also denied the motions on laches and unclean hands without prejudice, deferring those issues until after discovery.

business & regulatoryhealthcare