Court Opinion

ID: 9734251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:29:36.610178+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:47.236233
License: Public Domain

Michael J. Kelly, P.J.
(dissenting). The City of Detroit was granted summary disposition in this case on September 22, 1989, and that order is not at issue. On October 30, 1989, a motion for summary disposition was filed on behalf of defendants Hinton, McDonald, and Morgan, the city’s civilian employees who are emergency services (911) operators or supervisors. That motion sought summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(7), (8), and (10). In its order granting summary disposition, the trial court failed to indicate the subsection or subsections on which it relied. The order states as follows:
Because of documentary exhibits attached to [defendants’] brief, this court finds no gross negligence, nor a question of fact as to any negligence. Therefore, case dismissed on governmental immunity.
This was clearly erroneous.
The exhibits attached to defendants’ brief were never authenticated, never marked as exhibits, never received in the record, never the subject of a deposition or evidentiary hearing, and were supported only by the affidavit of Brenda Miller, assistant corporation counsel and attorney for Hinton, McDonald, and Morgan, that stated as follows:
*565Brenda M. Miller, being first duly sworn on oath, deposes and states the following:
1. That she is the attorney representing Defendants Louella Hinton, Barbara McDonald and Hazel Morgan in the above-captioned matter.
2. That she makes this affidavit based upon personal knowledge, and in support of Defendants’, Louella Hinton, Barbara McDonald, and Hazel Morgan, Motion for Summary Disposition.
3. That she knows the contents thereof, and that the same are true, except as to those matters therein stated to be on information and belief, which same she believe [sic] to be true.
4. That if called to testify to the aforementioned facts in a court of law, she could so competently testify.
The detail of the computer printout was interpreted to indicate that the 911 operators had received three calls. The first at 10:13 p.m., the second at 10:17 p.m., and the third at 10:29 p.m.
Plaintiff responded in a similar brief, supported by a similar affidavit that stated as follows:
Robert J. Wilson, being first duly sworn, deposes and says as follows:
1. That he is attorney of record for Plaintiff, and has been since the date of filing of the initial complaint in January, 1988.
2. That he has read the attached Supplemental Brief and avers that the facts contained therein are true upon information and belief, and to the best of his knowledge.
Further affiant saith not.
I find the affidavits supporting both the motion and the response violative of MCR 2.119(B)(1) in all respects. However, if the court disregarded the rule for defendants, it should have leveled the field for plaintiff. The trial court erred in giving the *566benefit of unsupported, unauthenticated, unsworn documentary evidence to the defendants, while discounting the contradictory claims of the plaintiff. The plaintiff alleged that:
Between 8:43 p.m. and 10:22 p.m., no less than 10 calls were made by the various persons to the 911 operator advising of the seriousness of the plaintiffs decedent’s condition, and repeatedly requesting a dispatch of an emergency vehicle. . . .
There was a failure on the part of the 911 operators to even record any except three of the calls that they received between 10:13 and 10:22 P.M.
The ems dispatched emergency vehicle arrived after 10:22 p.m., and transported plaintiffs decedent to the hospital where he was pronounced dead at 11:05 p.m. Plaintiffs decedent was alive for almost one hour after the first emergency call was made.
Plaintiff also alleged that the 911 operation mix-up was due to, in part, a work stoppage resulting from a labor dispute and that that had an effect upon the efficiency of those operators pressed into service at the time of the emergency involving plaintiff’s decedent. The trial court did not have a record on which to base any finding, express or implied, that no factual development could possibly justify plaintiffs allegations of gross negligence and wilful misconduct. The trial court erred.
I would reverse and remand.