Opinion
SC: 165614 COA: 360257
01-19-2024
Rakesh NAYYAR, Personal Representative of the Estate of Bimla Nayyar, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. OAKWOOD HEALTHCARE, INC., d/b/a Oakwood Hospital & Medical Center, Defendant-Appellant.
Wayne CC: 13-009819-NH
Order
On order of the Court, the application for leave to appeal the March 23, 2023 judgment of the Court of Appeals is considered, and it is DENIED, because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.
Zahra, J. (dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s order denying leave to appeal. Dissecting the long and complicated history of these proceedings, this case can be distilled down to three salient facts that form the foundation of my dissent. First, on May 14, 2020, a Court of Appeals panel "instructed [the trial court] to reinstate the [judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV)] in defendant’s favor." Second, on January 21, 2022, the trial court reinstated the JNOV in defendant’s favor, and plaintiff appealed the reinstatement in early February. Third, on March 23, 2023, a different panel of the Court of Appeals held that it was "not bound by the panel’s prior determination that defendant is entitled to JNOV" and that "[u]nder these circumstances, the appropriate remedy is to vacate the trial court’s January 21, 2022 order granting JNOV in favor of defendant and remand for entry of a judgment in favor of plaintiff." The second panel determined that it was not bound by the prior panel’s determination because Rott v Rott supposedly created a new exception to the law-of-the-case doctrine.
Nayyar Estate v Oakwood Healthcare, Inc, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued May 14, 2020, 2020 WL 2501674 (Docket No. 343676), p. 14; Iv den 507 Mich 999, 961 N.W.2d 147 (2021); reconden 508 Mich 956, 964 N.W.2d 595 (2021).
Nayyar Estate v Oakwood Healthcare, Inc, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued March 23, 2023, 2023 WL 2618482 (Docket No. 360257), p. 17.
Rott v Rott, 508 Mich. 274, 972 N.W.2d 789 (2021).
I dissent from this Court’s order denying leave to appeal because Rott v Rott did not establish a new exception to the law-of-the-case doctrine. Rott merely clarified that the law-of-the-case doctrine does not require a subsequent panel of the Court of Appeals to adopt a prior panel’s view that a fact existed when the prior panel assumed but did not decide the fact’s existence. Consequently, a majority of this Court held that the law-of-the-case doctrine did not bind the subsequent panel because "[i]nvocation of the law-of-the-case doctrine in a manner that would effectively deprive a party of its right to appeal an issue decided against it by a trial court would be a manifest injustice." We held that one strain of manifest injustice that will prevent application of the law-of-the-case doctrine is when a prior panel assumes but does not decide a prior issue. In that situation the law-of-the-case doctrine does not apply to the assumed issue because, of course, there was no determination of the disputed issue. Put another way, the law-of-the-case doctrine only applies to issues that are substantively decided by a prior court.
Id. at 288, 972 N.W.2d 789.
In the present case, the second Court of Appeals panel interpreted a single sentence of dictum from Rott in which we stated, "We also heed the United States Supreme Court’s astute observation that the ‘doctrine does not apply if the court is convinced that its prior decision is clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice’" to mean that any Court of Appeals panel may overturn any decision by a prior Court of Appeals panel if the prior decision is clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice. Taken in isolation, this dictum runs contrary to our decision in Rott and contradicts this Court’s longstanding precedent addressing the law-of-the-case doctrine. We have repeatedly held that when the facts remain materially the same, the law-of-the-case doctrine prevents a subsequent panel of the Court of Appeals from reviewing a prior panel’s determination. In elevating dicta above binding precedent, the Court of Appeals in this case effectively held that every decision of the Court of Appeals is appealable in the Court of Appeals, giving litigants endless bites at the apple. I am deeply concerned about allowing this new exception to the law-of-the-case doctrine to stand because it completely disturbs the finality of judgments and allows one Court of Appeals panel to have the authority to overturn another panel outside the convening of a special panel. Because this Court of Appeals opinion appears to have ignored binding precedent, misinterpreted the full context of our opinion in Rott v Rott, and created an unworkable rule in which every decision by a panel of the Court of Appeals will be endlessly appealable, I dissent from this Court’s order denying leave to appeal.
Id. (citation omitted); see also Allison v AEW Capital Mgt., L.L.P., 481 Mich. 419, 436-437, 751 N.W.2d 8 (2008) ("A statement that is dictum does not constitute binding precedent under MCR 7.215(J)(1).").
See, e.g., Rott, 508 Mich. at 286, 972 N.W.2d 789 ("[I]f an appellate court has passed on a legal question and remanded the case for further proceedings, the legal questions thus determined by the appellate court will not be differently determined on a subsequent appeal in the same case where the facts remain materially the same.") (quotation marks and citations omitted); Grievance Administrator v Lopatin, 462 Mich. 235, 260, 612 N.W.2d 120 (2000) ("[A]s a general rule, an appellate court’s determination of an issue in a case binds lower tribunals on remand and the appellate court in subsequent appeals."); Webb v Smith, 224 Mich App 203, 209, 568 N.W.2d 378 (1997) ("Under the law of the case doctrine, an appellate court ruling on a particular issue binds the appellate court and all lower tribunals with regard to that issue. The law of the case mandates that a court may not decide a legal question differently where the facts remain materially the same…. The rationale supporting the doctrine is the need for finality of judgment and the want of jurisdiction in an appellate court to modify its own judgments except on rehearing.") (citations omitted); Johnson v White, 430 Mich. 47, 52-53, 420 N.W.2d 87 (1988) ("As a general rule, an adjudication on an issue in the first appeal is the law of the case in all subsequent appeals in which the facts are substantially the same.").
See MCR 7.215(I) and (J).
Viviano, J., joins the statement of Zahra, J.
Viviano, J. (dissenting).
I concur with Justice Zahra’s assessment of the law-of-the-case doctrine as applied here. But before reaching this issue, I would remand the case to the Court of Appeals to address defendant’s argument that the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. Under MCL 600.308(1) and MCR 7.203(A), the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over final judgments and final orders of a lower court. A final judgment or order is defined, in relevant part, as "the first judgment or order that disposes of all the claims and adjudicates the rights and liabilities of all the parties, including such an order entered after reversal of an earlier final judgment or order[.]" MCR 7.202(6)(a)(i). Here, defendant makes a colorable argument that the trial court’s order from which plaintiff appealed was not a final order. It was entered at the direction of the Court of Appeals’ earlier opinion and therefore the trial court arguably had no discretion in the matter. See IBM Corp. v Dep’t of Treasury, 316 Mich App 346, 353, 891 N.W.2d 880 (2016) (noting that such orders after appellate proceedings leave the trial court with the "nondiscretionary, ministerial task of entering judgment" and that there is "not to be any further substantive litigation, proceedings, or decision-making").
And I would retain jurisdiction to allow this Court an opportunity to address the law-of-the-case issue.
Plaintiff also contends that the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction on the basis of MCR 7.203(B)(1), which states that the Court of Appeals "may grant leave to appeal from … a judgment or order of the circuit court and court of claims that is not a final judgment appealable of right[.]" I believe this argument should have been addressed as well.
Holding that the trial court’s order here is a final order could allow an endless cycle of appeals concerning issues already decided. When a trial court enters an order disposing of the case pursuant to a mandate from an appellate court, as happened here, there generally seems to be no reason for appeal of that order except to collaterally attack the prior appellate decision. This result, paired with a loosened law-of-the-case doctrine, could gravely undermine the finality of any judgment.
This issue therefore raises important concerns that were not analyzed by the Court of Appeals. That court rejected defendant’s argument in a one-line order without any analysis or explanation. I would therefore remand to the Court of Appeals for full consideration of this issue.