Court Opinion

ID: 9689349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:28:32.676199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:47.164749
License: Public Domain

Beasley, J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. In general, I accept the recitals of fact in the majority opinion, but not the conclusions. Obviously, a lawyer cannot be in two courts at one and the same time. When a lawyer is ordered to be in two courts at the same time and brings his predicament to the attention of each, and where the courts are generally coequal in their place on the judicial ladder in Michigan’s "one court of justice”, the decision as to which court in which the lawyer must appear in is properly for the courts, not the lawyer. In the author’s experience as a trial judge, the circuit courts in the metropolitan Detroit area practiced comity toward each other, and the court administrators and/or assignment clerks resolved conflicts between courts when lawyers were assigned to be in two courts at the same time. There is no good reason why Detroit Recorder’s Court cannot similarly participate in such an arrangement.1
My review of this record indicates that the Detroit Recorder’s Court made an impossible demand upon respondent attorney by ordering him to be in recorder’s court at a time when they knew the attorney was involved in an ongoing malpractice trial in Macomb County Circuit Court. The attorney was ordered to appear in the Macomb County Circuit Court in Mt. Clemens at 11 a.m. on Monday, April 28, 1980, to go over jury instruc*244tions. With knowledge of counsel’s Macomb County trial obligation, recorder’s court ordered respondent to be in Detroit to resume jury selection in a criminal felony trial at 9 a.m. on Monday, April 28, 1980.
It is entirely obvious that if counsel went to Detroit, he was going to be required to appear in court either to continue jury selection or for some other purpose. Even if the judge commenced at 9 a.m. sharp, some period of time, for whatever proceedings were to occur, was going to elapse before respondent counsel was released to go to the Macomb County courthouse in Mt. Clemens. To suggest that somehow he would be released in time to walk to a parking lot, to get his car through Detroit traffic to the expressway, to drive to Mt. Clemens, to find a parking lot in Mt. Clemens and to walk to the Macomb County courthouse to get there by 11 a.m. is not only unreasonable, but largely impossible. Viewed charitably, the visiting judge in recorder’s court should have known his order was squarely in conflict with resumption of the malpractice case in Macomb County.
I do not share the majority view that since it is "physically possible” to appear in recorder’s court at 9 a.m. for a hearing of unknown duration and still be in the Macomb County courthouse at 11 a.m., respondent was in contempt of recorder’s court for not appearing there.
The effect of the recorder’s court order was to require respondent attorney to be in two locations at one time. Whichever choice he made was bound to be a bad one. Confronted by those two orders, he was sure to be in contempt in one court. The ongoing civil malpractice case in Mt. Clemens would seem to have had priority.
*245As the majority indicates, the malpractice case in Macomb County began as scheduled on Tuesday, April 22, 1980. The trial judge recessed the trial from Wednesday afternoon until Friday morning because he had been called to Lansing on judicial business. On Friday, the malpractice trial resumed and, at the end of the day, the trial judge ordered the attorneys to be in court at 11 a.m. on Monday to settle jury instructions.2 Under these circumstances, I would hold the ongoing malpractice trial enjoyed priority.
Thus, I would believe respondent’s choice of courts in which to appear was technically correct. He advised both courts of his problem. The responsibility for deciding in which court he should appear rested with the courts. It would seem that the two courts, the Macomb Circuit Court and Detroit Recorder’s Court, had an obligation to communicate with each other when counsel told them of the conflict.
In any event, I would find an abuse of discretion on the part of the Detroit Recorder’s Court in finding respondent guilty of contempt under the facts of this case. It was unfair to the attorney for the courts to fail to establish a priority. I would reverse the finding of contempt and award respondent his costs and attorney fees._.____

 The record does not indicate either a formal or an informal arrangement between the Macomb Circuit Court and Detroit Recorder’s Court.

 Respondent attorney advised the Macomb judge he was supposed to be in recorder’s court on Monday, but the Macomb judge declined to release him.