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No. 131891
| Hany F. Koulta, Personal Representative for the |
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Neil B. Pioch |
| Estate of Sami F. Koulta, Deceased, |
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Plaintiff-Appellant, |
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(Appeal from Ct of Appeals) |
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(Macomb - Caretti, R.) |
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| City of Centerline, |
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Defendant, |
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| Daniel Merciez, Robert Wroblewski, and |
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Julie McCann O'Connor |
| Steven Hilla, |
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| Defendants-Appellees. |
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| __________________________________________ |
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Click to view briefs in Adobe format:
Plaintiff-Appellant's Application for Leave to Appeal>>
Plaintiff-Appellant's Supplemental Brief>>
Defendants-Appellees' Brief in Opposition to Application for Leave to Appeal>>
Defendants-Appellees' Supplemental Brief>>
Michigan Municipal League and Michigan Townships Association's Amici Curiae Brief>>
Background
Police officers Daniel Merciez, Robert Wroblewski and Steven Hilla arrived at the home of Frances Offrink in Centerline, in response to an “unwanted person” call. Offrink complained that Chrissy Lucero, her son’s ex-girlfriend, would not leave the premises. The officers allegedly found Lucero outside of the home, clinging to a rose trellis, and asking Offrink to let her into her home because she was too drunk to drive. The officers did not conduct sobriety tests or administer a breathalyzer test. According to the officers, Lucero told them that she had been drinking, but that she did not tell them the extent of her drinking because she was afraid she would be arrested. The officers say Lucero agreed to leave when they told her to do so. Lucero sat in her car in the driveway, and did not move because, as she later reported, she did not feel that she was fit to drive. Merciez, who had left the house a moment before, saw that Lucero was still in the driveway and returned to tell her that she had 10 seconds to leave. Lucero obeyed. Less than seven minutes later, Lucero ran a red light at a high rate of speed, and struck another car, killing its driver, Sami Koulta. Lucero’s blood alcohol content was .11, above the legal limit. The plaintiff sued, claiming, among other things, that the officers were negligent or grossly negligent in the way they handed the unwanted person call. The officers argued that they were entitled to governmental immunity as a matter of law under the Governmental Tort Liability Act, MCL 691.1401, because the plaintiff could not show that they were grossly negligent. Even if they were grossly negligent, the officers argued, their gross negligence was not the proximate cause of Koulta’s death. The officers also argued that they did not owe a specific duty to protect Koulta from harm, and that the public duty doctrine barred the plaintiff’s claims against them. The trial court denied the officers’ motion for summary disposition, but the Court of Appeals reversed in an unpublished opinion. The appellate court reasoned that, under the public duty doctrine, the officers did not owe a duty to Koulta to protect him from harm. Even if the officers did owe such a duty, the Court of Appeals held, they were nonetheless entitled to summary disposition because their actions were not the proximate cause of Koulta’s death. The plaintiff appeals.
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