Masrur v. Univ. of Mich.

999 N.W.2d 55

344 Mich.App. 102

Nayir MASRUR, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.REGENTS OF the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, d/b/a University of Michigan Health System and C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Stacey Noel, M.D., and Emily Mathias, M.D., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 356858

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

Submitted November 2, 2022, at Detroit.

Decided November 10, 2022, 9:10 a.m.

Court of Claims, LC No. 2020-000194-MH, Michael J. Kelly, J.

Giroux Trial Attorneys, PC, Southfield (by Matthew D. Klakulak) for plaintiff.

Kerr, Russell and Weber, PLC, Detroit (by Joanne Geha Swanson) for defendants.

Before: Riordan, P.J., and Boonstra and Gadola, JJ.

Boonstra, J.

₁₀₅In this interlocutory appeal by leave granted,¹ defendants—Regents of the University of Michigan, C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital, and others—challenge the trial court’s order denying their motion ₁₀₆for 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, Nayir Masrur, 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 he 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. Plaintiffs family members began searching the area for him. Plaintiffs 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 ₁₀₇and 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, was 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 plaintiffs 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:

₁₀₈Defendant 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 added by plaintiff.] The plaintiff in Glazier was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Id. at 217, 429 N.W.2d 857. 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 Comity Circuit Count. [Emphasis added except as noted.]

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 "non-criminal."

The trial court denied defendants’ motion for summary disposition, holding that plaintiffs "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. App. at 217-221, 429 N.W.2d 857, 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 because of 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 ₁₀₉entered 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 signed the original complaint on September 11, 2021. Plaintiff additionally noted that after defendants filed their motion for reconsideration, the judgment of sentence in plaintiffs 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 plaintiffs 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 plaintiffs 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

[1–4] 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. Allwell-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 ₁₁₀are 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 119-120, 597 N.W.2d 817 (quotation marks and citations omitted).]

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, 79, 941 N.W.2d 60 (2019); ETT Ambulance Serv Corp v Rockford Ambulance, Inc, 204 Mich App 392, 395, 516 NW2d 498 (1994).

[5, 6] We review for an abuse of discretion a trial court’s decision on a motion for reconsideration. Woods v SLB Prop Mgt, LLC, 211 Mich App 622, 629, 750 NW2d 228 (2008).

Generally, and without restricting the discretion of the court, a motion for rehearing or reconsideration which merely presents the same issues ruled on by the court, either expressly or by reasonable implication, will not be granted. The moving party must demonstrate a palpable error by which the court and the parties have been misled and show that a different disposition of the motion must result from correction of the error. [MCR 2.119(F)(3).]

A trial court "necessarily abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law." PF v JF, 336 Mich App 118, 126, 969 N.W.2d 805 (2021).

III. ANALYSIS

Defendants argue that the trial court erred by failing to grant their motion for summary disposition because plaintiff’s plea of nolo contendere but mentally ill conclusively established that plaintiff could not invoke the insanity exception to the wrongful-conduct rule. We agree to the extent that defendants argue that ₁₁₁the trial court should have granted summary disposition to defendants in the context of their motion for reconsideration.

[7–9] The wrongful-conduct rule "bars a claim if a plaintiff must rely on his or her own conduct for recovery…." Varela, 329 Mich App at 81, 941 N.W.2d 60. In other words, the rule will bar recovery if "(1) ‘the plaintiffs conduct [is] prohibited or almost entirely prohibited under a penal or criminal statute,’ (2) ‘a sufficient causal nexus … exist[s] between the plaintiffs illegal conduct and the plaintiffs asserted damages,’ and (3) the defendant’s culpability is not greater than the plaintiff’s culpability." Id., quoting Orzel v Scott Drug Co, 449 Mich. 550, 561, 564, 537 N.W.2d 208 (1995) (alterations in Varela). However, an exception to...