Court Opinion

ID: 9503648
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 19:48:26.161377+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:03:37.764679
License: Public Domain

Corrigan, J.
(dissenting). I would remand this case to the trial court and order the Department of Corrections (MDOC) to show cause for the consistent delays in transmitting the plaintiff inmate’s legal mail to the courts. First, the delays may have originated from the MDOC’s Baraga Maximum Correctional Facility, where plaintiff is housed. The MDOC is a party both to this suit and to the underlying suit in which plaintiff petitioned for judicial review of an MDOC hearing officer’s decision. The MDOC is also the beneficiary of the delays, which resulted in the dismissal of plaintiffs petition in the underlying suit. Accordingly, it is appropriate to order the MDOC to explain the delays at a show cause hearing. Second, until the Court has additional facts concerning the cause of the delays, providing relief to plaintiff is premature. Finally, the courts will benefit from explicit fact-finding by the trial court in this case. Even if the delays originated with the MDOC, their causes remain a mystery. For example, in addition to the delays in mail to the trial court noted by Chief Justice Kelly, the record contains a notice mailed to the Court of Appeals and received by that court on June 23, 2008. The meter stamp from Baraga, Michigan, on the face of the envelope suggests that the notice was mailed over a month earlier, on May 19, 2008. Yet the back of the envelope reveals a second meter stamp dated June 19, 2008. Accordingly, it is not clear whether this particular piece of mail was delayed at all; if its timeliness was at issue, the unexplained multiple meter stamps presumably would prevent the easy application of a mailbox rule for prison inmates, as described by Chief Justice Kelly, for this piece of mail. Thus, fact-finding in this case concerning the causes for the delays to plaintiffs mail will shed light on whether a mailbox rule is necessary and desirable. We can make an informed administrative decision concerning a potential mailbox rule only with more specific information concerning the reasons for delay in cases such as this one.
Young, J. I join the statement of Justice Corrigan.