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STATE OF MICHIGAN 

COURT OF APPEALS 

DIANE HARRIS, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant, 

UNPUBLISHED 

August 20, 2015 

v No. 322088 

Wayne Circuit Court 

GREEKTOWN SUPERHOLDINGS, INC., 

GREEKTOWN CASINO, L.L.C., and CAROLYN 

SIMANCIK, 

LC No. 12-003001-CD 

 Defendants, 

and 

BARRY A. SEIFMAN and BARRY A. 

SEIFMAN, P.C., 

 Defendants-Appellees. 

Before: OWENS, P.J., and SAAD and GADOLA, JJ. 

PER CURIAM. 

 Appellant Diane Harris appeals as of right from an order dismissing her case with 

prejudice. Because Harris lacks standing to assert this appeal, we conclude that we have no 

jurisdiction and therefore dismiss Harris’s case. 

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY 

 In March 2012, Harris, assisted by attorney Raymond Guzall III, filed a lawsuit against 

Greektown Casino, LLC, Greektown Superholdings, Inc., and Carolyn Simancik (collectively 

“Greektown Casino”), asserting claims of racial discrimination, hostile work environment, age 

discrimination, retaliation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In November 2013, a 

jury returned a verdict in favor of Harris for $600,066. Thereafter, Harris filed a motion 

requesting entry of judgment and an award of attorney fees and costs. 

 After the jury returned its verdict but before the trial court entered judgment or awarded 

attorney fees or costs, appellees, Barry A. Seifman and Barry A. Seifman, P.C., formerly known 

as Seifman & Guzall, P.C., filed a motion to intervene in Harris’s case, asserting a right to any 

attorney fees awarded. According to appellees, in 2006, Guzall and appellees executed a 

stockholder agreement expressly providing that in the event Guzall ended his employment with 
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Seifman & Guzall, P.C., all client files would remain the property of the firm. In February 2012, 

Guzall tendered notice that he was leaving the firm. Appellees asserted that when Guzall left, he 

took several client files and court documents, including the file regarding Harris’s case, in 

violation of the 2006 stockholder agreement. 

 Shortly after Guzall left the firm, appellees initiated litigation against him in the Oakland 

Circuit Court. In March 2012, the Oakland Circuit Court issued a stipulated order stating, “Any 

attorney fees and or cost reimbursements . . . paid to Plaintiffs or Defendants, whether directly or 

indirectly, from or on behalf of any of the following clients, shall be deposited into an interest 

bearing escrow account maintained by the Court.” Harris was not listed among the “following 

clients” covered by the Oakland Circuit Court’s March 2012 order. According to appellees, 

Harris was not listed because Guzall improperly concealed his relationship with Harris. 

Therefore, appellees argued, intervention in Harris’s case was necessary to protect their interest 

in any attorney fees awarded. 

 Following a hearing, the trial court granted appellees’ motion to intervene and ordered 

that any attorney fees awarded would be held in escrow with the Wayne Circuit Court. In 

January 2014, appellees requested that the trial court refer the issue of entitlement to attorney 

fees to the Oakland Circuit Court, where the other disputes between Guzall and appellees were 

pending. The trial court granted appellees’ motion and referred the attorney fee dispute to the 

Oakland Circuit Court. Thereafter, the Court entered judgment on Harris’s jury verdict, awarded 

$50,000 in attorney fees, and dismissed the case with prejudice. 

II. DISCUSSION 

 On appeal, Harris asserts that the trial court improperly allowed appellees to intervene as 

of right in the litigation to assert an interest in any attorney fees awarded. We agree that the trial 

court abused its discretion1

 in allowing appellees to intervene. MCR 2.209(A)(3) states that, on 

timely application, intervention as of right is appropriate 

when the applicant claims an interest relating to the property or transaction which 

is the subject of the action and is so situated that the disposition of the action may 

as a practical matter impair or impede the applicant’s ability to protect that 

interest, unless the applicant’s interest is adequately represented by existing 

parties. 

Appellees did not have “an interest relating to the property or transaction which is the subject of 

the action.” Harris’s employment discrimination claims were the subject of the lawsuit below. 

Appellees’ claims of entitlement to the attorney fees awarded in Harris’s case were based on 

breach of contract principles that were unrelated to the legal questions presented in Harris’s case, 

and which only applied against Guzall, who was not a party to the proceedings. See Precision 

Pipe & Supply, Inc v Meram Constr, Inc, 195 Mich App 153, 157; 489 NW2d 166 (1992) 

 

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 We review a trial court’s decision on a motion to intervene for an abuse of discretion. Hill v LF 

Transp, Inc, 277 Mich App 500, 507; 746 NW2d 118 (2008). 
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(“[I]ntervention may not be proper where it will have the effect of delaying the action or 

producing a multifariousness of parties and causes of action.”). Appellees’ motion to intervene 

was also untimely, as they waited over one year and eight months to file their application despite 

obvious knowledge of Harris’s case. See Prudential Ins Co of America v Oak Park Sch Dist, 

142 Mich App 430, 434; 370 NW2d 20 (1985) (“[A]n intervenor must be diligent, and any 

unreasonable delay after knowledge of the action will justify a denial of intervention where no 

satisfactory excuse is shown for the delay.”). 

 Further, appellees did not have standing to intervene. See Karrip v Cannon Twp, 115 

Mich App 726, 732; 321 NW2d 690 (1982) (holding that a party must demonstrate standing to 

intervene as of right in a lawsuit). “[A] litigant has standing whenever there is a legal cause of 

action” or when a court determines, in its discretion, that the litigant has a substantial interest 

“that will be detrimentally affected in a manner different from the citizenry at large.” Lansing 

Sch Ed Ass’n v Lansing Bd of Ed, 487 Mich 349, 372; 792 NW2d 686 (2010). Appellees did not 

have an interest in the outcome of Harris’s lawsuit inasmuch as it involved her claims of 

employment discrimination against Greektown Casino, and they did not have a legal cause of 

action against Harris. Rather, appellees sought intervention to assert breach of contract claims 

against Guzall, who was not a party to the proceedings. Appellees have not shown that their 

potential interest in the attorney fees would be detrimentally affected by disposition of Harris’s 

lawsuit, and they have not provided any reason why they could not have added this dispute to 

their pending litigation against Guzall in the Oakland Circuit Court. Under these circumstances, 

the trial court abused its discretion in allowing appellees to intervene. 

 Despite the trial court’s obvious error, we cannot grant the relief now requested by Harris 

because she lacks appellate standing to bring this appeal. “In order to have appellate standing, 

the party filing an appeal must be ‘aggrieved.’ ” Manuel v Gill, 481 Mich 637, 643; 753 NW2d 

48 (2008). Our Supreme Court clarified the standard governing appellate standing as follows: 

An aggrieved party is not one who is merely disappointed over a certain result. 

Rather, to have standing on appeal, a litigant must have suffered a concrete and 

particularized injury, as would a party plaintiff initially invoking the court’s 

power. The only difference is a litigant on appeal must demonstrate an injury 

arising from either the actions of the trial court or the appellate court judgment 

rather than an injury arising from the underlying facts of the case. [Federated Ins 

Co v Oakland Co Rd Comm, 475 Mich 286, 291-292; 715 NW2d 846 (2006) 

(footnotes omitted).] 

“A party who could not benefit from a change in the judgment has no appealable interest.” Id. at 

291 n 2 (citations and quotation marks omitted). Further, “ ‘[t]o be aggrieved, one must have 

some interest of a pecuniary nature in the outcome of the case, and not a mere possibility arising 

from some unknown and future contingency.’ ” Id., quoting In re Trankla’s Estate, 321 Mich 

478, 482; 32 NW2d 715 (1948). If a court determines that an appellant lacks standing, it must 

“recognize its lack of jurisdiction and act accordingly by staying proceedings, dismissing the 

action, or otherwise disposing thereof, at any stage of the proceeding.” In re Fraser’s Estate, 

288 Mich 392, 394; 285 NW 1 (1939). 
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 We conclude that Harris lacks standing to bring this appeal because she did not suffer a 

concrete and particularized injury resulting from the action of the trial court granting appellees’ 

motion to intervene, and because she would not gain a pecuniary benefit if the Court grants the 

relief she now requests. On appeal, the only issues raised concern whether Guzall or appellees 

were entitled to the attorney fees awarded, and whether the trial court properly allowed appellees 

to intervene below. The trial court’s award of attorney fees was wholly distinct from the entry of 

judgment on Harris’s jury verdict; thus, resolution of these issues will not have any effect on the 

judgment entered in favor of Harris, or on the final amount of money Harris will recover as a 

result of her lawsuit against Greektown Casino. 

 Guzall, rather than Harris, was the aggrieved party with standing to appeal in this matter. 

In Matthew R Abel, PC v Grossman Investments Co, 302 Mich App 232; 838 NW2d 204 (2013), 

this Court addressed whether an attorney who was not a party to the lower court proceedings had 

appellate standing to challenge a postjudgment award of attorney fees. The Court determined 

that the attorney was an aggrieved party under the standard articulated in Federated Ins Co, 475 

Mich at 291-292, because he suffered a concrete and particularized injury arising from the lower 

court’s order, and because he had a pecuniary interest in any order affecting attorney fees. 

Matthew R Abel, PC, 302 Mich App at 241. The panel further determined that the attorney was 

not required to intervene in the underlying action to have appellate standing. Id. at 244-245. In 

this case, the claim of appeal lists Harris, not Guzall, as the appellant. Because Harris does not 

have a pecuniary interest in the outcome of this proceeding, she is not an aggrieved party and we 

lack jurisdiction over this appeal. Federated Ins Co, 475 Mich at 291 n 2; MCR 7.203(A). 

 Harris’s claim of appeal is dismissed. 

/s/ Donald S. Owens 

/s/ Henry William Saad 

/s/ Michael F. Gadola