Resources
Environmentalist Victory Short Lived?
At the very end of the 2010 term of the lame duck Democratic majority, the Michigan Supreme Court issued its 4-3 decision in Anglers of the AuSable v DEQ and provided a significant victory for Michigan environmentalists. The decision has huge implications. Much of...
Disappointed Bidders on Public Projects
Recently, the Michigan Court of Appeals released its decision in Cedroni Associates, Inc. v Tombilson, Harburn Associates Architects & Planners, Inc. (docket # 287024, released 11/16/10) which provides new avenues for the disappointed low bidder to challenge the...
Duty of Reasonable Inquiry does not include Bankruptcy Search
Like many attorneys, I've experienced the uncomfortable feeling of being blindsided by a previously unknown fact that a client should have told me being raised in litigation. The recent opinion issued by the Michigan Court of Appeals in Food Solutions Inc v Haggard...
Pay close attention to expert interrogatories
In a case that is sure to trap the unwary, the Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld a trial court’s bar of expert witness testimony as a discovery sanction for failing to supplement answers to interrogatories. In the case of Lawton & Cates S.C. v International...
Defending Collections against Spousal Guaranties
It’s becoming an all-too-familiar fact pattern: a former spouse loses his business and is uncollectable/bankrupt leaving the bank to look to the former spouse for collection pursuant to a guaranty taken out during the marriage. In those instances, lawyers need to...
Michigan Contract Disputes – Rebirth of the Latent Ambiguity Doctrine
This week, the Michigan Supreme Court released its opinion in Shay v Aldrich, (# 138908 released August 23, 2010) and held that sometimes, “all” does not mean “all.” The facts in Shay were straight-forward – a plaintiff settled with two parties in a litigation and...
Treating Limited Liability Companies as Corporations
As Michigan law provides some effective remedies and developed common law to govern disputes involving corporations, it is often desirable to apply corporate law principles to limited liability companies. I’ve never seen any reason to treat the entities differently in...
A Warning to Landlords
If landlords weren't already convinced about the dangers of self-help, the recently released case of Christie v Fick, (Mich Ct. App. docket # 285924, released March 2, 2010) should make the point very clear. In that case, the plaintiffs were living in a cabin near...
Statutory Conversion Creativity
Michigan’s statutory conversion statute (MCLA 600.2919a) used to confine its enhanced remedy to those who were wrongfully in receipt of converted assets. However, as it didn’t make sense to treat the person receiving the assets more harshly than the converter, the...
Precluding Fraud Claims- The Winning Provision to put in your Contracts
For years, commercial litigators have used merger clauses within contracts as a defense to fraud claims. The merger clause can prevent evidence of fraud from being introduced via the parol evidence rule and can also make any alleged reliance “unreasonable.” This has...