Opinion
Nos. 104458-104492.
November 21, 1996.
Reconsideration Granted November 21, 1996:
On reconsideration, the defendants' application is granted. Order of September 27, 1996, ante, 892, is vacated. Plaintiffs' application for leave to appeal as cross-appellants is denied. Reported below: ( After Remand, On Third Remand) 213 Mich. App. 500 and Court of Appeals Nos. 93547-93577, 93658, 125691, 158968.
The Court has written two full opinions in the tortured sixteen-year path of this litigation, a path that again led to this Court's consideration of familiar issues in full conference before our six to one order of denial entered this past September. I had urged my colleagues to grant leave to appeal, not because of the issues urged upon us by these defendants, but because I thought it appropriate for this Court to promptly resolve the questions of the state's obligations to the school districts of this state, their citizens, and, most importantly, those children of this state in need of special education services. I was unable to persuade three of my colleagues at that time to grant leave and, thus, the order of denial was entered.
The suggestion in the motion for reconsideration that after sixteen years of litigation and losses up and down the appellate ladder there are unanticipated consequences attendant to that denial cannot be taken seriously. This administration, no less than its predecessor, was well aware of the severe consequences of the Headlee Amendment in general, and of the ramifications for state government of this case in particular.
Despite the fact that the state presents nothing beyond that which this Court already considered when we denied leave, at least four of my colleagues are now persuaded that we should grant reconsideration and grant leave to appeal. Rather than adding a seventeenth year to this litigation and even further delaying the state's school districts their due, I would deny reconsideration. I would also consider ordering mediation among these parties to effect a reasonable and extended method for the state to meet its obligations to the school districts.