Court Opinion

ID: 9718330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:21:15.899361+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:58.606831
License: Public Domain

Sawyer, P.J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent. Defendant represented plaintiffs husband’s ex-wife in a custody action. Defendant obtained a copy of a confidential Department of Social Services protective services report of an investigation into an allegation involving abuse of plaintiff’s children by plaintiff. Defendant attached a copy of the confidential report to a motion that sought to restrict plaintiff’s husband’s visitation with his children in plaintiffs presence. Plaintiff brought the instant action seeking damages for defendant’s publication of the confidential report in the motion that was filed as part of a public record. The trial court granted summary disposition for defendant, concluding that defendant was protected by a common-law privilege regarding court pleadings.
The only issue on appeal is whether the trial court erred in concluding that defendant’s act of publishing the confidential report as part of a pleading in a public file is protected by a privilege. I agree with plaintiff that the trial court did err.
In this case, the scope of the pleading privilege need not be determined or whether, absent the applicable statutory provision, it would be applicable here. Rather, I believe that the applicable statute prohibited publication of the confidential report as part of the public record. MCL 722.633(3); MSA 25.248(13)(3) provides as follows:
*266Except as provided in section 7, a person who disseminates, or who permits or encourages the dissemination of, information contained in the central registry and in reports and records made pursuant to this act is guilty of a misdemeanor and is civilly liable for the damages proximately caused by the dissemination.
Section 7 of the Child Protection Law, MCL 722.627; MSA 25.248(7), provided at the time the defendant submitted the report in pertinent part as follows:
(1) The department shall maintain a central registry system to carry out the intent of this act. A written report, document, or photograph filed with the department pursuant to the act shall be a confidential record available only to 1 or more of the following:
(f) A person named in the report or record ....
(g) A court which determines the information is necessary to decide an issue before the court.
* * *
(2) A person or entity to whom a report, document, or photograph is made available shall make the report, document, or photograph available only to a person or entity described in subsection (l)(a) to (1). This subsection shall not be construed to require a court proceeding to be closed which otherwise would be open to the public.
This statute makes it clear the report must remain confidential. It does provide that the report may be disclosed to a court that requires the information. That does not, however, mean that the report may be placed in the public record. Rather, as subsection 7(2) makes clear, the report can only be made available to the court. Accordingly, accepting for the purposes of deciding this issue that the report was, in *267fact, necessary for the trial court in the custody action to decide the visitation issue, the report should have been made available to the court on a confidential basis. It should not have been made part of the public record.
Simply put, while it may have been permissible for defendant to supply the report to the trial court in the custody action, he was not privileged to publish it in the public record. Rather, the applicable statute specifically restricts dissemination of the report to those who need the report, such as the trial judge in the custody action. In short, defendant was not privileged to violate the statute. See Williams v Coleman, 194 Mich App 606; 488 NW2d 464 (1992).
Accordingly, I would reverse.