Source: https://michiganlawyerblog.wordpress.com/2011/08/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 18:39:31+00:00

Document:
A man who was growing marijuana before he obtained a doctor’s certification or a registry identification card under the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act cannot invoke the act’s affirmative defense, even though he was arrested after he obtained both the certification and registry card.
Brian Reed’s marijuana plants were spotted from a police aircraft. At the time, Reed lacked both the physician’s authorization and registry identification card. The card is a prerequisite to invoking the MMMA’s affirmative defense to avoid prosecution for certain marijuana offenses.
By the time Reed was arrested for manufacturing marijuana, he had all of the MMMA’s required documentation. He moved for dismissal, invoking the act’s affirmative defense. He appealed when the trial court denied his motion.
Reed argued his documentation was in place before he was arrested, so dismissal was required under Kolanek.
We now extend [Kolanek] and hold that, for the affirmative defense to apply, the physician’s statement must occur before the commission of the purported offense.
We further hold that defendant has no immunity under MCL 333.26424 because defendant did not possess a registry identification card at the time of the purported offense.
The case is People v. Reed.
Fired worker takes on Ford Motor Co.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed suit against Ford Motor Co. Inc. for failing to provide a reasonable accommodation to a disabled worker at its Dearborn facility.
According to the EEOC, Ford refused to let employee Jane Harris participate in its liberal telecommuting program as a reasonable accommodation for her gastrointestinal condition, which she said had rendered her disabled. The EEOC claims that instead of accommodating the worker, Ford criticized her job performance, and placed her on a “performance enhancement plan.” She complained about being denied the accommodation, and a few months later, Ford fired her, which EEOC said is a violation of the ADA.
The EEOC said that it tried to reach a pre-litigation settlement. The agency is seeking back pay and compensatory damages for emotional distress, and punitive damages. The case is EEOC v. Ford Motor Company Inc., Case No. 2:11CV13742, and was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
For many years, lead was a key component of paint.
Pigments used to color paint contained lead. Lead is highly opaque, so a little paint could go a long way — think “one-coat” coverage. Lead is also a very durable material and almost impervious to water, so a dirty wall could be scrubbed clean without affecting the painted finish.
But no paint job, not even a lead-based paint job, lasts forever. It eventually it cracks and peels, producing lead dust. The process also produces chips, which apparently taste sweet.
But lead is toxic. Over time, if you get enough of it in you, it attacks the nervous system, among other things. You begin to act as if your brain has turned to mush. Some historians say this explains the often-insane behavior of ancient Roman nobility, who swilled wine from goblets made of lead.
Congress enacted the RLPHRA based upon its findings that low-level lead poisoning, caused primarily by the ingestion of household dust containing lead from deteriorating or abraded lead-based paint, endangers the health and development of children living in as many as 3.8 million American homes. 42 U.S.C. § 4851.
The act requires property owners to disclose the potential presence of lead-based paint in residential structures and to provide information about how to guard against the paint’s dangers. If the disclosures aren’t made and the information is not provided, the act allows someone who buys a home or rents a residence, “the purchaser or the lessee” in the act’s words, to collect three times their provable damages.
Christina Roberts, whose two children were conceived and raised in an apartment, alleged that her landlords didn’t follow the act. She sued as next friend on behalf of her children, who, she alleged, were poisoned by lead paint in the apartment.
The federal district court dismissed the case.
Griffin agreed. Roberts’ children have no cause of action under the act, he said.
The language plainly and expressly limits private recovery to a “purchaser or lessee” of target housing, and no one else. … “Where a statute names the parties granted the right to invoke its provisions, such parties only may act.” Hartford Underwriters Ins. Co. v. Union Planters Bank, N.A., 530 U.S. 1, 6-7 (2000) … .
Because the language is plain — indeed, it could not be more so — we stop here and hold that children of a lessee may not sue a lessor for violations of the RLPHRA’s disclosure requirements.
Congress created a cause of action for purchasers and lessees, not those who happen to benefit from the sales and leases, yet are not, themselves, purchasers or lessees.
All is not lost, noted Griffin, citing Mason ex rel. Heiser v. Morrisette, 403 F.3d 28 (1st Cir. 2005), for the proposition that children can pursue causes of action under state and local lead-paint abatement laws.
No quibble here with Griffin’s analysis. The quibble is with Congress, which enacted a law out of concern for millions of children who are at-risk for lead poisoning but didn’t provide the children with a federal remedy.
A statute requiring public employees to contribute three percent of their pay to finance state retiree health-care benefits is unconstitutional, the Michigan Court of Appeals has ruled.
In AFSCME Council 25, et al. v. State Employees Retirement System, et al., the court upheld a lower court ruling that struck down MCL 38.35.
The state and unions representing state workers negotiated a three percent pay raise, which the state Civil Service Commission (CSC) approved.
The statute negated the raise by requiring state workers to contribute the amount of the raise to fund health care benefits for state retirees.
Court of Appeals Judge Karen M. Fort Hood, joined by Judges Jane M. Beckering and Cynthia Diane Stephens, ruled that the CSC has plenary authority over state workers’ pay.
Fort Hood explained that Michigan’s Constitution has an express mechanism to override the commission.
[A]n increase in the rate of compensation authorized by the commission may be rejected or reduced by the Legislature “by a two-thirds vote of the members elected to and serving in each house” provided the vote occurs within 60 calendar days of the transmitted increase. Mich Const 1963, art 11, § 5, ¶ 7.
The Legislature tried but failed to override the CSC in this manner, and then enacted the statute.
the Legislature acted to reduce the compensation of classified civil servants by three percent without an accompanying agreement with the unions or the [commission].

References: v. 
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