Masrur v. Regents of the Univ. of Mich.

Court of Claims LC No. 2020-000194-MH

Before: RIORDAN, P.J., and BOONSTRA and GADOLA, JJ.

BOONSTRA, J.

In this interlocutory appeal by leave granted,^[1] defendants challenge the trial court's order denying their motion for summary disposition, as well as their motion for reconsideration of that denial. We reverse and remand for entry of an order granting summary disposition in favor of defendants.

I. PERTINENT FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The pertinent and tragic facts of this case are not disputed. In November 2018, emergency responders brought plaintiff to the emergency room of defendant C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.^[2]Emergency room staff noted that plaintiff was aggressive and combative, and that he was unable

to answer questions coherently. Plaintiff was preliminarily diagnosed as reacting to a drug overdose, and was restrained and monitored for several hours. Plaintiff was released into his parents' care late that evening and spent the night at a relative's home. The following day, plaintiff climbed out of a window and left the home. Plaintiff's family members began searching the area for him. Plaintiff's aunt eventually found plaintiff in the basement of his parents' house. Plaintiff attacked and beat his aunt to death with a barbell.

Plaintiff was arrested and charged with open murder. He entered a plea of "guilty but mentally ill" to the charge of voluntary manslaughter on June 1, 2020,^[3] and was sentenced on September 9, 2020 to a prison term of 18 months to 15 years.

On September 23, 2020, plaintiff filed a medical malpractice complaint, alleging that defendants or their agents had failed to properly diagnose and treat his acute psychosis, had negligently diagnosed plaintiff as being under the influence of "party drugs," and had negligently discharged plaintiff, causing his aunt's death and plaintiff's subsequent arrest and incarceration. Plaintiff subsequently filed an amended complaint on December 17, 2020. Neither complaint contained any reference to plaintiff's criminal plea or sentencing; rather, both complaints alleged that plaintiff had been arrested, charged with open murder, and was "currently housed in the Oakland County Jail." Plaintiff's complaints also alleged that plaintiff had been psychiatrically evaluated and found to have been legally insane at the time he killed his aunt.

In December 2020, in lieu of answering plaintiff's complaint, defendants moved for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(8), arguing that plaintiff had failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted. Defendants argued that plaintiff's claims were barred by the "wrongful-conduct rule," which prohibits recovery when damages are based on a plaintiff's own immoral or illegal conduct; defendants additionally argued that plaintiff had failed to establish proximate cause. In January 2021, plaintiff responded to defendants' motion, arguing that the "insanity exception" to the wrongful-conduct rule applied in his case. In his response, plaintiff repeatedly stated that he "was in an acute psychotic state at all relevant times and lacked the requisite mens rea for criminal liability"; he additionally stated in relevant part:

Defendant accurately quotes from wrongful conduct rule precedent. However, this precedent is inapplicable because Plaintiff is not endeavoring to "shift the responsibility for his crime to defendant." Glazier v Lee, 171 Mich.App. 216, 221; 429 N.W.2d 857 (1988). [Emphasis by plaintiff.] The plaintiff in Glazier was convicted of voluntary manslaughter Id. at 217. Here, by contrast, Plaintiff Nayir Masrur has been convicted of no crime related to the events of this case (and will be convicted of no crime related to the events of this case because was [sic] in an acute psychotic state at all relevant times and lacked the requisite mens rea for his actions to be immoral or criminally culpable).... [H]ere Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint alleges no criminal responsibility has been (or will be) found by the Oakland County Circuit Court. [Emphasis added.]

Plaintiff also argued that his actions "were not criminal and were not an intervening superseding cause breaking the chain of causation." Plaintiff repeatedly referred to his conduct as "noncriminal."

The trial court denied defendants' motion for summary disposition, holding that plaintiff's "allegations of legal insanity at the time of his actions are enough to preclude, at least at this juncture, application of the wrongful-conduct rule." The trial court, in discussing Glazier, 171 Mich. at 217-221, noted that, in that case, the plaintiff's claim was barred by the wrongful-conduct rule because he was found to be criminally responsible for his conduct by virtue of his conviction of voluntary manslaughter. The trial court noted that, in this case, plaintiff had alleged that he was not responsible for his conduct due to legal insanity.

Defendants moved for reconsideration, arguing that plaintiff had misled the trial court. Defendants stated that they had recently learned that plaintiff had pleaded "guilty but mentally ill" to voluntary manslaughter, and that the plea and sentence had been entered before plaintiff filed his original medical malpractice complaint. Plaintiff responded, asserting that the statements in the complaint were true and accurate when plaintiff's counsel had signed the original complaint on September 11, 2021. Plaintiff additionally noted that after defendants filed their motion for reconsideration, the judgment of sentence in plaintiff's criminal case was amended nunc pro tunc by stipulated order to change the conviction of "guilty but mentally ill" to "nolo contendere but mentally ill." Plaintiff argued that his plea of nolo contendere could not be used as an admission of criminal responsibility in a civil proceeding, and that plaintiff's counsel was unaware of the plea when he filed plaintiff's response to defendants' motion for summary disposition.

The trial court denied defendants' motion for reconsideration, holding that, under MCR 2.116(C)(8), it was required to accept all factual allegations in plaintiff's complaint as true, and therefore "while the nolo contendere plea may be used as evidence against plaintiff in this matter, it is neither dispositive evidence nor does it compel the Court to enter summary disposition in defendants' favor under subrule (C)(8)." This appeal followed.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review de novo a trial court's decision to grant or deny summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(8). Maiden v Rozwood, 461 Mich. 109, 118; 597 N.W.2d 817 (1999).

A motion under MCR 2.116(C)(8) tests the legal sufficiency of the complaint. All well-pleaded factual allegations are accepted as true and construed in a light most favorable to the nonmovant. A motion under MCR 2.116(C)(8) may be granted only where the claims alleged are so clearly unenforceable as a matter of law that no factual development could possibly justify recovery. When deciding a motion brought under this section, a court considers only the pleadings. [Id. at 119.]

Mere conclusory statements and statements of the pleader's conclusions of law are insufficient to state a cause of action. Varela v Spanski, 329 Mich.App. 58, 72; 941 N.W.2d 60 (2019); ETT Ambulance Serv Corp v Rockford Ambulance, Inc, 204 Mich.App. 392, 395; 516 N.W.2d 498 (1994).

We review for an abuse of...