Court Opinion

ID: 9656287
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 19:45:41.606019+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:30.644787
License: Public Domain

MacKenzie, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur with that portion of the majority opinion disallowing the awards for expert witness fees and for the defense of the counterclaim. I also concur with the majority that reasonable attorney fees for purposes of Oakland County Circuit Court Rule (OCCR) 18.12 should be determined by applying the factors enumerated in Crawley v Schick, 48 Mich App 728; 211 NW2d 217 (1973). However, I cannot agree with the clear implication of the majority opinion that the method by which reasonable attorney fees are *694determined pursuant to GCR 1963, 316.8 materially differs from that held to apply to the Oakland County rule.
Where a defendant accepts a mediation evaluation but the plaintiff rejects it, GCR 1963, 316.7(b)(1) authorizes the assessment of actual costs to be paid by the plaintiff to the defendant if the plaintiff does not obtain a verdict in an amount at least ten percent greater than the evaluation. Pursuant to GCR 1963, 316.8, actual costs include taxable costs "and a reasonable attorney fee as determined by the trial judge for services necessitated by the rejection of the panel’s evaluation”.
In the earlier opinion in this case, Maple Hill Apartment Co v Stine, 131 Mich App 371; 346 NW2d 555 (1984), vacated and remanded 422 Mich 862 (1985), the majority held that reasonable attorney fees for purposes of GCR 1963, 316.8 should be construed as those attorney fees "reasonably fore.seeable” at the time a party opts to reject a mediation evaluation. On remand, the majority has abandoned that construction in favor of a construction which would require the trial court to make two separate inquiries. First, the court would determine whether the claimed attorney fees are reasonable. The majority implies that this initial determination should be made by applying the Crawley factors. Second, under the majority’s analysis, the trial court would have to resolve whether the fees were necessitated by rejection of the mediation evaluation. Unfortunately, the majority provides trial courts no guidance as to how this question should be resolved.
While I fully agree that the "reasonably foreseeable” test of the earlier opinion should be discarded, in my opinion, the new approach suggested by the majority is equally unsatisfactory. The *695purpose of GCR 1963, 316.7 and 316.8 is to encourage resolution through mediation by imposing certain sanctions against a party who rejects a mediation award and obtains from a subsequent trial a result which is less favorable than the mediation award. To effect this purpose, the mechanics of the sanction rule must be both fair and relatively easy to apply. Insofar as the majority goes beyond the application of the Crawley factors in determining what constitutes a reasonable attorney fee for purposes of GCR 1963, 316 and focuses on whether services performed were "necessitated” by the rejection of a mediation evaluation, it significantly diminishes the efficacy of imposing such sanctions and consequently subverts the purpose of the court rule.
The premise of the majority opinion is that there is a substantive difference between GCR 1963, 316.8 and OCCR 18.12. In my opinion, that premise is flawed. I would hold that OCCR 18.12 and GCR 1963, 316.8 are alike in substance: both authorize imposition of reasonable attorney fees incurred by the nonrejecting party for services performed after the rejection of a mediation evaluation.
OCCR 18.12 defines "actual costs” as "reasonable attorney fees to be determined by the judge to whom the case is assigned”. GCR 1963, 316.8 defines "actual costs” to include "a reasonable attorney fee as determined by the trial judge for services necessitated by the rejection of the panel’s evaluation”. In my view, the phrase "for services necessitated by the rejection of the panel’s evaluation” in GCR 1963, 316.8 was meant as nothing more than a temporal demarcation. Thus, I believe that the sanction imposed by the general court rule is that the rejecting party is responsible for reasonable attorney fees incurred by the opposing *696party which are the result of services rendered after mediation is rejected, but not those performed up to the time mediation is rejected. This construction is borne out by the Committee Notes accompanying GCR 1963, 316. There, the staff explains that under the rule’s definition of "actual costs”, "[o]nly costs made necessary by the rejection of the evaluation (i.e., post-mediation costs) are recoverable”. (Emphasis added.)
The significance of this construction of GCR 1963, 316 is two-fold. First, it relieves trial courts of the wholly unrealistic duty of performing an after-the-fact review of the nonrejecting party’s trial preparation and practice. Generally it is not possible for an attorney in advance of trial to determine with precision what will be proven, asked, or argued at trial. Hence, in all but the simplest of cases, counsel must prepare for any number of contingencies which may or may not actually arise in the courtroom. By construing "services necessitated by rejection” as post-mediation services, the trial court need not conduct a hindsight examination of the trial and retrospectively characterize an attorney’s time spent as either "necessitated” or "not necessitated” by the rejection of a mediation evaluation. Instead, the court is able to concentrate its resources on the basic factual determination of whether the post-mediation attorney fees claimed are reasonable under all the circumstances.
Second, the above construction is consistent with the policy of GCR 1963, 316, in that it places sanctions for deviation from the rule on the proper party, i.e., the party who rejects a mediation evaluation. As Judge Kallman noted in his dissent to the original opinion in this case, "[wjhether or not the trial here could have proceeded more expeditiously does not change the fundamental fact that, *697but for plaintiffs rejection of the mediation [evaluation], no trial would have been necessary in this case”. 131 Mich App 385. In this respect, the rejecting party is responsible for costs associated with trial. Consistent with the purpose of GCR 1963, 316.8, the rejecting party must assume the risk of bearing those costs when that party opts to go to trial. Again, construing "services necessitated by rejection” as post-mediation services accomplishes that purpose.
The two-part inquiry suggested by the majority, on the other hand, places an inequitable burden on the nonrejecting party. The facts of this case are illustrative. Here, defendant accepted and plaintiff rejected the mediation panel’s evaluation. Accordingly, the case went to trial, where it is alleged that delays attributable to neither party arose. These delays meant that increased attorney fees were incurred by defendant. The majority intimates that because the delays were not necessitated by the decision to go to trial, defendant would be unable to recoup the associated attorney fees under GCR 1963, 316, but instead would himself be responsible for their satisfaction. The effect is to shift the impact of the court rule’s sanctions for rejecting a mediation evaluation to the defendant. Defendant attempted to settle by accepting the mediation evaluation, yet under the majority’s "necessitated” construction he would face the possibility of bearing costs for which he was not responsible and which he attempted to circumvent by settling.
This Court has held that when a statute or court rule is silent on the method by which reasonable fees are to be determined, the guidelines enumerated in Crawley should be followed. See In re L’Esperance Estate, 131 Mich App 496; 346 NW2d 578 (1984); Liddell v Detroit Automobile Inter-Ins *698Exchange, 102 Mich App 636; 302 NW2d 260 (1981). It is not surprising, then, that in Petterman v Haverhill Farms, 125 Mich App 301; 335 NW2d 710 (1983); Johnston v Detroit Hoist & Crane Co, 142 Mich App 597; 370 NW2d 1 (1985), and Burke v Angies, Inc, 143 Mich App 683; 373 NW2d 187 (1985), lv den 422 Mich 964 (1985), Crawley was applied in the context of GCR 1963, 316.8, the court rule discussed in the instant case. I believe this panel should adhere to that view and refrain from implying that the general court rule requires trial courts to conduct an additional inquiry focusing on whether services were "necessitated” by the decision to reject a mediation evaluation before awarding reasonable attorney fees. Accordingly, I suggest that the determination of what constitutes "a reasonable attorney fee” for purposes of GCR 1963, 316.8 be accomplished in a single-step proceeding applying the guidelines set forth in Crawley to attorney fees incurred after a mediation award is rejected. In my view, such a proceeding to determine reasonable attorney fees would safeguard against awards for services inefficiently or frivolously performed after rejection of mediation while simultaneously preserving the intent of GCR 1963, 316 and its sanction provisions.