Opinion ID: 842341
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: other concerns beyond constitutionality

Text: This Court's decision to answer a certified question from another state's intermediate appellate court is unprecedented. This Court's decision to use MCR 7.305(B) to answer the certified question in this case exceeds how other states have answered certified questions. Although MCR 7.305(B) grants this Court the authority to answer a certified question from a federal court, state appellate court, or tribal court, the power is not constitutionally derived and goes beyond how any other state has ever applied certified question laws. Forty-six states have adopted or created a modified version of the UCQLA, § 1-14 (1995) and not one single state has utilized the reach of its rule as broadly as the majority does here today. [4] By answering a certified question from an intermediate appellate court of another state, the majority does what no other state has done even when they have been explicitly granted the power to do so. Nineteen states, including Michigan, permit another state to certify questions of law to the supreme court of that state. [5] Of those 19 states, eight restrict the asking court to the court of last resort or the highest appellate court of another state. [6] Five states, including Michigan, each allows an or any appellate court of another state to certify questions of law to the supreme court of that stateby reference an intermediate appellate court may be authorized to certify a question to the state supreme court. [7] From my research it appears that no state has ever answered a question certified to it by another state intermediate appellate court. The majority's decision today to answer a question certified by the Texas Court of Appeals is unprecedented. It leaves to another time for one to ponder why the majority chooses to reach so far deep into the heart of Texas to answer a question posed by the Texas Court of Appeals, an intermediate appellate court.