Case Name: MILLS v. FRANCO FOOD EQUIPMENT, INC
Court: Michigan Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1987-07-07
Citations: 161 Mich. App. 376
Docket Number: Docket No. 92663
Parties: MILLS v FRANCO FOOD EQUIPMENT, INC
Judges: Before: Wahls, P.J., and M. J. Kelly and C. W. Simon, JJ.
Reporter: Michigan appeals reports; cases decided in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Volume: 161
Pages: 376–387

Head Matter:
MILLS v FRANCO FOOD EQUIPMENT, INC
Docket No. 92663.
Submitted February 3, 1987, at Detroit.
Decided July 7, 1987.
Leave to appeal applied for.
George G. Mills, Sr., and others filed suit against Franco Food Equipment, Inc., and others in Wayne Circuit Court seeking damages for breach of contract, fraud and misrepresentation, deceit, conversion, and civil rights violations. The case was submitted to mediation, which resulted in a unanimous evaluation of $18,000. Defendants accepted the evaluation and plaintiffs were deemed to have accepted it due to the failure on their part to file a timely rejection. Plaintiffs’ attorney contends that rejection of the mediation evaluation was mailed eleven days before expiration of the forty-day time period provided under the local court rules for Wayne Circuit Court and that any delay in receipt of that rejection was entirely the fault of the United States Postal Service. Plaintiffs’ motion for an order requiring the mediation tribunal to accept a late rejection of the mediation award and motion for rehearing were denied, Thomas Roumell, J. The Court of Appeals, in an unpublished opinion per curiam, decided February 21, 1985 (Docket No. 72984), affirmed, but then granted plaintiffs’ motion for a rehearing and remanded the matter to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing. The court conducted the hearing and again denied plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration. Plaintiffs appealed.
The Court of Appeals held:
1. Timely rejection of a mediation award is not complete upon mailing.
2. The trial court erred in denying plaintiffs’ request to have their rejection notice received by the mediation tribunal as timely filed. Unrebutted testimony established that the rejection was timely mailed. If the delay was the fault of the postal service, the rejection should have been deemed timely and the motion granted.
References
Am Jur 2d, Evidence §§ 193 et seq.
Am Jur 2d, New Topic Service—Alternative Dispute Resolution §§ 10, 24.
See the annotations in the Index to Annotations under Arbitration and Award.
Reversed.
Wahls, P.J., dissented. He would hold that the trial judge exercised his discretion in choosing not to believe plaintiffs’ contention that the rejection was timely mailed and that when a trial court exercises its discretion there is, necessarily, no one correct answer and the trial court is in the best position to make a discretionary decision because it enjoys the exclusive opportunity to hear the witnesses firsthand. Because he finds the trial judge’s exercise of discretion in this case was not abusive and because he is not convinced that the judge erred in denying plaintiffs’ request to have their untimely notice received by the mediation tribunal as timely filed, he would affirm.
1. Arbitration — Mediation Awards — Timeliness op Rejection — Mail.
Timely rejection of a mediation award is not complete upon mailing of the rejection.
2. Arbitration — Mediation Awards — Timeliness op Rejection.
Rejection of a mediation evaluation may be deemed to have been timely when the only evidence is unrebutted testimony that the rejection was mailed eleven days before the expiration of the applicable time period even though the rejection was timestamped by the mediation tribunal clerk when received and was received after expiration of the time period; apparent delayed delivery on the part of the United States Postal Service should not be attributed to the rejecting party.
Lawrence J. Stockier, P.C. (by Lawrence J. Stockier), for plaintiffs.
Metry, Metry & Sanom (by Samuel T. Sanom), for defendants.
Before: Wahls, P.J., and M. J. Kelly and C. W. Simon, JJ.
Circuit judge, sitting on the Court of Appeals by assignment.

Opinion:
M. J. Kelly, J.
The parties have this Court's February 21, 1985, opinion in Case No. 72984, and its order on rehearing dated October 24, 1985. The facts need not be repeated.
Because of the order on rehearing the doctrine of law of the case is inappropriate and inapplicable on these facts.
We hold that timely rejection of the mediation award is not complete upon mailing.
On review, however, we have a definite and firm conviction that the trial court erred in denying plaintiffs' request to have their rejection notice received by the mediation tribunal as timely filed and we therefore reverse.
Two witnesses testified that the rejection was indeed mailed timely, in fact eleven days before the deadline. There was testimony regarding the percentage of delayed mail delivery by the United States Post Office in the area serviced. The trial court concluded:
The item that would have put this entire problem to rest once and for all is a [sic] fact the letter envelope which was used by Mr. Stockler's office to mail the rejection, which would have shown the postmark of it having been placed in the U. S. Mails, just isn't available, and no one is at fault for this; that is, for its unavailability.
That unavailability was not the fault of the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs' attorney introduced his copies of the correspondence and his secretary testified as to the date of the mailing. The mediation tribunal routinely discarded envelopes.
Unless the witnesses, Mr. Lawrence Stockier, a practicing attorney, and his secretary of eleven years, Miss Gail Musialowski, conspired to commit perjury and a fraud upon the court, there was unrebutted testimony that the rejection was timely mailed. If it was a delayed delivery on the part of the United States Post Office, the rejection should have been deemed timely and the motion granted.
Reversed.
C. W. Simon, J., concurred.