Michigan Supreme Court Lansing, Michigan

Marilyn Kelly, Chief Justice

Michael F. Cavanag h
Elizabeth A. Weave r

Maura D. Corriga n Robert P. Young, Jr. Stephen J. Markma n Diane M. Hathaway,
J ustices 

# Order

September 25, 2009

138018 & (58)

RODNEY HOOVER a nd MAXINE HOOVER, Conservators of the Estate of MICHAEL HOOVER, a Developmenta lly Disabled Person, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v SC: 138018 COA: 278237 Genesee CC: 86-085769-NZ MICHIGAN MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, a/k/a AMERISURE, Defendant-Appellee.

________________ _______________ __________/

On order of the Court, the motion for leave to file brief amicus curiae is GRANTED. The application for leave to a ppeal the December 11, 2008 judgment of the Court of Appeals is consider ed, and it is GRANTED. Th e parties shall include among the issues to be briefed whether, or to what extent, the defendant is obligated to pay the plaintiffs personal protection insurance bene fits under the no-fault act, MCL 500.3101 et

seq. , for housing and living expenses, as well as services, associated with the care of the plaintiffs’ adult son, Mi chael Hoover, and whether Griffith v State Farm Mutual
Automobile Ins Co , 472 Mich 521 (2005), was correctly decided.

K ELLY

, C.J. ( concurring ). Justice Young’s dissenting statement is short on the civility th at, in my opinion, justices of this Court owe one another out of respect for others’ sincerely held beliefs and
honorable motivations.

It is also inaccurate in several respects. For example, my vote here represents no change in my fidelity to judicial restra int and stare decisis. In the case of Peterson v Magna Corp , 484 Mich 300 (2009), issued a mere 60 days ago

, I provided a lengthy statement detailing that fidelity. Like my vote in this ca se, my position in Peterson is wholly consistent with my past “clamorings.” I urge all who are interested to read

Peterson

.

Y OUNG

, J. ( dissenting ). I would deny leave to appeal. I therefor e dissent from the order granting leave to appeal in this case and inviting the parties to reconsider whether Griffith v State FarmI, Corbin R. Davis, Clerk of the Mi chigan Supreme Cour t, certify that the foregoing is a true and complete copy of the order entered at the direction of the Court.

_______________________________________ __ Clerk September 25, 2009

p0922 2

Mut Automobile Ins Co , 472 Mich 521 (2005), was correctly decided. This case represents the latest installment on Chief Ju stice Kelly’s promise to undo “the damage that the Republican Court has done” duri ng the last decade. Brian Dickerson, GOP Justices Gird for Gang of 3 1/2 , Detroit Free Press, Janua ry 11, 2009, at 1B.

It is no secret that members of the new majority share a judi cial philosophy very different from that of the prior majority of the Taylor Court. Theirs is a philosophy that allows empathy (or “equity”) to trump the wo rds of a statute. Wh ile the majority is within its rights to reconsider Griffith , doing so is incompatib le with the respect for judicial restraint and stare decisis that memb ers of the new majority stoutly professed for over a decade. Indeed, the new majority’s actions smack of the very “pattern of exercising power to overturn numerous longstanding preceden ts in a manner that lacks judicial restraint” that Jus tice Cavanagh once decried in a ttacking the Taylor Court in Cooper v Wade , 461 Mich 1201 , 1203 (1999). 1 Moreover, not only is today’s order a hypocritical change in the new ma jority’s purported fidelity to stare decisis, today’s order
is indicative of the zeal with which the majority is attempti ng to obliterate this Court’s
last decade of work. Chief Justice Kelly was once concerned that “if each successive Court, believing its reading is correct and past readings wrong, rejects precedent, then the law will fluctuate from year to year, rendering our jurisprude nce dangerously unstable.” Pohutski v City of Allen Park , 465 Mich 675, 712 (2002) (Kelly, J., dissenting). 2 The majority’s decision to reconsid er a decision handed down just four years ago proves that her fears for preserving precedent pertained only to precedent with which she personally agreed. I suspect we will hear no more about stare decisis fro m the new majority.

1 Lenawee Co Bd of Rd Comm’rs v State Auto Prop & Cas Ins Co , ___ Mich ___ (2009) (Docket Nos. 137667, 137668, order entered Septembe r 2, 2009) (Cavanagh, J., concurring). Ten years ago, Justice Cavanagh, joined by then Justice Kelly, dissented in Cooper from an order that asked the parties to ad dress whether the Court should exercise its authority to reconsider certa in previously decided cases. He explained that “the fact that a majority would feel that the proper exercise of its du ties mandates that [it] revisit every decision of this Court that [it] might qu estion and have the power to reach . . . is a troubling thought.” Cooper , 461 Mich at 1203. Instead, he counseled “a necessary measure of judicial restraint.” Id.

2 The actions of this new majority demonstrat e that its previous clamorings about stare
decisis were no more th an political posturing.