Opinion YOUNG, J. The issue presented in this case is whether offense variable (OV) 19, MCL 777.49, may be scored for aggravating conduct that occurred after the sentencing offense was completed. In People v. McGraw, this Court held that "[o]ffense variables must be scored giving consideration to the sentencing offense alone, unless otherwise provided in the particular variable." 1 Here, we hold that because the circumstances described in OV 19 expressly include events occurring after the...
DAVIS, J. In this case we determine whether defendant Merit Energy Company's plan to discharge contaminated water from an environmental cleanup site in the Manistee River watershed into a previously unpolluted site in the AuSable River watershed is an allowable use of water. We also determine in this case whether the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) (which is now the Department of Natural Resources and Environment) can be sustained as a defendant in an action brought under...
Opinion HATHAWAY, J. At issue in this case is whether a public school may administer payroll deductions for its employees who remit funds to the Michigan Education Association Political Action Committee (MEA-PAC), a segregated fund under MCL 169.255. We conclude that the Court of Appeals clearly erred by holding that administration of a payroll deduction system is not allowed under Michigan law. We reverse the Court of Appeals' judgment because a public school's administration of a payroll...
Opinion YOUNG, J. The respondent-father in this case had his parental rights terminated pursuant to MCL 712A.19b(3)(c)( i ), (g), and (j). The sole issue respondent advanced on appeal is the propriety of the trial court's order requiring respondent to continue paying child support after the termination of his parental rights. Respondent argues that his obligation to pay child support ended as a matter of law when his parental rights were terminated and that any continued child support...
PER CURIAM. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan certified the following question to this Court pursuant to MCL 7.305(B): Assuming that a decedent's brain has been removed by a medical examiner in order to conduct a lawful investigation into the decedent's cause of death, do the decedent's next-of-kin have a right under Michigan law to possess the brain in order to properly bury or cremate the same after the brain is no longer needed for forensic examination...
Opinion HATHAWAY, J. We heard oral argument on whether to grant defendant's application for leave to appeal. At issue is whether defendant is entitled to resentencing for an armed-robbery conviction when the Court of Appeals vacated his concurrent convictions for felonious assault that had been used as a factor in calculating his sentence for armed robbery. Court of Appeals remands for resentencing are governed by MCL 769.34, which requires that cases be remanded when the sentence is based on...
Opinion MARKMAN, J. We granted leave to appeal to consider whether evidence that a child was present in a home in which defendant was in possession of drugs and firearms is, by itself, legally sufficient to support defendant's conviction under MCL 750.145 for doing an act that "tended to cause a minor child to become neglected or delinquent so as to tend to come under the jurisdiction of" the family division of the circuit court. We hold on the facts of this case—where there is no evidence...
Opinion YOUNG, J. In this case, the trial judge's determination that the prosecutor failed to present sufficient evidence to convict defendant was based on an erroneous legal analysis. The question this case poses is whether that erroneous legal analysis precludes defendant's retrial under the double jeopardy clauses of the United States and Michigan constitutions. 1 This Court's decision in People v. Nix holds that such legal error precludes retrial. 2 Our adversarial system of justice...
Opinion WEAVER, J. In this case, we decide whether the Michigan Court of Appeals case, Romska v. Opper, 234 Mich.App. 512 , 594 N.W.2d 853 (1999), was correctly decided. After examination of the Romska decision regarding the scope of a release from liability, we overrule Romska to the extent that its holding precludes the use of parol evidence when an unnamed party asserts third-party-beneficiary rights based on broad language included in a release from liability and an ambiguity...
Opinion CORRIGAN, J. The Court of Appeals erroneously concluded that evidence of an unusual number of prior fires—each associated with property owned or controlled by defendant—was inadmissible in this arson case in which defendant was accused of intentionally starting a fire in his home. Because the evidence was not offered to prove defendant's bad character or his propensity to act in conformity with a bad character, the trial court correctly concluded that MRE 404(b)(1) did not preclude...
Opinion HATHAWAY, J. In this opinion, we address only whether venue was proper in Saginaw County for defendant's trial on charges of solicitation to commit murder and witness intimidation. We conclude that venue was not proper for either charge because neither crime was committed in Saginaw County. However, because improper venue is not a constitutional structural error, this matter is subject to a harmless error analysis under MCL 769.26. In this case, defendant was not deprived of his due...
HATHAWAY, J. This case addresses the burden of proof necessary to establish proximate causation in a traditional medical malpractice action. At issue is whether the Court of Appeals properly reversed the trial court's denial of summary disposition. The trial court ruled that plaintiff had established a question of fact on the issue of proximate causation sufficient to withstand a motion for summary disposition. The Court of Appeals reversed. It treated plaintiff's claim as a loss-of-...
Opinion WEAVER, J. In this case, we decide whether this Court correctly gave retroactive effect to its decision in Karaczewski v. Farbman Stein & Co., 478 Mich. 28 , 732 N.W.2d 56 (2007). After examination of the Karaczewski decision and the effect overruling its retroactivity would have, we overrule the holding of Karaczewski that gave the decision its retroactive effect. Accordingly, pursuant to MCR 7.302(G)(1), in lieu of granting leave to appeal, we reverse the decision of the...
Opinion MARILYN J. KELLY, C.J. We examine whether MCL 600.5821(4), which preserves state entities' rights to bring certain claims, also preserves the right to seek recovery of all damages incurred notwithstanding the one-year-back rule of MCL 500.3145(1). We hold that MCL 600.5821(4) exempts the state entities it lists from the one-year-back rule. As a consequence, we overrule Liptow v. State Farm Auto. Mut. Ins. Co., 1 which held to the contrary, and reverse the judgment of the Court of...
Opinion MICHAEL F. CAVANAGH, J. The issue in this case is the proper interpretation of the "serious impairment of body function" threshold for non-economic tort liability under MCL 500.3135. We hold that Kreiner v. Fischer, 471 Mich. 109 , 683 N.W.2d 611 (2004), was wrongly decided because it departed from the plain language of MCL 500.3135, and is therefore overruled. We further hold that, in this case, as a matter of law, plaintiff suffered a serious impairment of a body function....
Opinion MARILYN J. KELLY, C.J. In these consolidated cases, we must determine the proper interpretation of the venue statute 1 in the Civil Rights Act (CRA). 2 Specifically, we are asked to decide whether venue was proper in Wayne County under MCL 37.2801(2). Plaintiffs filed their suits in Wayne County, alleging that defendant terminated their employment in violation of the CRA. The Court of Appeals, relying on its decision in Barnes v. Int'l Business Machines Corp., 3 concluded that...
Opinion WEAVER, J. In this case, we decide whether plaintiff, Derith Smith, presented clear and convincing evidence at trial to support the jury's finding that defendants John Stanek, Donald Barrows, and Noel Flohe defamed plaintiff by mass-mailing copies of a personnel report containing false information about her. After conducting an independent review of the record, we conclude there exists clear and convincing evidence that Stanek and Barrows acted with "actual malice," but that plaintiff...
Opinion CORRIGAN, J. In this criminal case, we hold that the traditional common law affirmative defense of self-defense may be interposed to a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm, MCL 750.224f. Defendant temporarily possessed a firearm in violation of the felon-in-possession statute but introduced evidence at trial supporting the theory that his violation was justified because he acted in self-defense. The prosecutor did not resist defendant's argument regarding the...
Opinion CORRIGAN, J. In these consolidated cases, we consider the scope of the Michigan Penal Code provision that criminalizes the "knowing possession" of child sexually abusive material, MCL 750.145c(4). Defendants intentionally accessed and purposely viewed depictions of child sexually abusive material on the Internet. The only child sexually abusive material later found on their computers, however, had been automatically stored in temporary Internet files. 1 Defendants contend that...
