Opinion ID: 1037026
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Crown Corr and Hunt Construction5

Text: Plaintiff initially asserted claims against WCAA, Northwest, and Kimco in Michigan state court in December 2008. Defendants WCAA and Northwest filed a third-party complaint against Hunt and Crown in February 2009. The state court granted Crown’s motion for summary judgment, and dismissed the third-party complaint against both Crown and Hunt. That dismissal was not appealed. Northwest and WCAA moved the court to file notices of non-party fault against Crown and Hunt, and that motion was granted. On December 10, 2009, the state court granted Plaintiff’s motion to amend her complaint to name Crown and Hunt as defendants. Plaintiff filed her amended complaint on December 29, 2009. Crown was served with the amended complaint on January 7, 2010, and removed the case to federal court. Northwest and WCAA then filed their cross-complaint against Crown and Hunt. The district court ruled that the crosscomplaints were barred by Michigan’s statute of repose, a decision which is not appealed. Crown and Hunt argue that these claims are barred by both the doctrine of full faith and credit, and that even if found valid under that doctrine, fail under the statute of repose. 5 The district court initially granted these motions on the basis of timeliness, but after granting Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration, ruled that the claims were governed by the repose statute. Nos. 12-1857/1928 Tompkins v. Crown Corr, Inc., et al. Page 17 First, we find that these claims should have been disposed of on the basis of the state court’s earlier decision. “Under 28 U.S.C. § 1738, federal courts are required to give the judgments of state courts the same preclusive effect as they are entitled to under the laws of the state rendering the decision . . . ” Exec. Arts Studio, Inc. v. City of Grand Rapids, 391 F.3d 783, 795 (6th Cir. 2004). Michigan takes “a broad approach to the doctrine of res judicata, holding that it bars not only claims already litigated, but also every claim arising from the same transaction that the parties, exercising reasonable diligence, could have raised but did not.” Adair v. State, 680 N.W.2d 386, 396 (Mich. 2004). The claims against Crown and Hunt are not identical to the claims in the thirdparty complaint dismissed by the state court. However, as Plaintiff was a party to that action, and had every opportunity to bring these causes of action in the state court, these claims should have been dismissed as a matter of res judicata. And even without this doctrine, Defendants were properly granted summary judgment by the district court. Hunt was the general contractor hired to build McNamara. Hunt, in turn, hired Crown to build the roof at McNamara. Crown completed its work and the terminal became operational in February 2002. Crown’s contract to construct the roof included a ten-year warranty, and it was occasionally called upon to perform work on the roof. Until 2005, there were occasional repairs made on the roof. Under Michigan’s statute of repose, absent gross negligence: A person shall not maintain an action to recover damages for injury to property, real or personal, or for bodily injury or wrongful death, arising out of the defective or unsafe condition of an improvement to real property, or an action for contribution or indemnity for damages sustained as a result of such injury, against any state licensed architect or professional engineer performing or furnishing the design or supervision of construction of the improvement, or against any contractor making the improvement, unless the action is commenced within either of the following periods: (a) Six years after the time of occupancy of the completed improvement, use, or acceptance of the improvement Mich. Comp. Laws § 600.5839. Nos. 12-1857/1928 Tompkins v. Crown Corr, Inc., et al. Page 18 Plaintiff argued below that while the new roof constituted an “improvement,” the later work (addressing leaks in the roof pursuant to the warranty) did not relate to the improvement, but constituted repairs, which are not covered by the repose statute. Crown and Hunt claim that the later work was a continuation of the original work. If Defendants’ contention is correct, then as the terminal was “accepted” on February 24, 2002, Plaintiff was required to bring her claims prior to February 24, 2008. The district court found that Crown and Hunt’s continued work related to the original improvement. Plaintiff asserts that any work done after the occupation or acceptance of the building cannot be considered a continuation of the work, and thus cannot start the tolling period for the statute of repose. Plaintiff does not cite any cases for this proposition. Defendants cite several cases, however, that show that even when work has continued after the date of acceptance, the earlier date can still control for the purposes of the statute of repose. See Beauregard-Bezou v. Pierce, 487 N.W.2d 792, 794(Mich. Ct. App. 1992). To the extent that Plaintiff can show repairs, they were clearly within the scope of the original contract, and thus a continuation of the work. See Travelers Ins. Co. v. Guardian Alarm Co. of Michigan, 586 N.W.2d 760, 763–64 (Mich. Ct. App. 1998), overruled on other grounds by Miller-Davis Co. v. Ahrens Const., Inc., 802 N.W.2d 33 (Mich. 2011), (“Here, the six-year limitation period began to run when Troy Design used or accepted the alarm system . . . Although Guardian performed additional work on the alarm system in June 1989, that work was incidental to the earlier installation of the completed system.”); Male v. Mayotte, Crouse & D’Haene Architects, Inc., 413 N.W.2d 698, 700 (Mich. Ct. App. 1987) (state of repose began to run on date of acceptance, not when repairs and installation finished). Accordingly, the district court correctly dismissed Plaintiff’s claims against Crown and Hunt on the basis of the statute of repose. Nos. 12-1857/1928 Tompkins v. Crown Corr, Inc., et al. Page 19