Detroit, MI

A recent Michigan Court of Appeals decision makes training on third-party retaliation issues imperative, and employers should revise their retaliation policies to ensure the definition of retaliation in their handbooks is broad enough to encompass any retaliatory actions taken against third parties who are not complainants.

Although the House Committee on Energy and Commerce has progressed the American Data Privacy and Protection Act to the House after it proposed changes, the Act probably will remain at a stand-still due to elections, but ADPPA likely will be a priority once a new Congress assembles.

The Michigan Supreme Court has placed the state’s civil rights law on par with its federal counterpart Title VII and protects against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The Court ruled that a person’s sexual orientation necessarily implies conclusions about their sex, and so “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for their sexual orientation without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”

During the pandemic, trial courts were forced to implement protocols to ensure the safety of jurors and everyone else participating in trials. The Michigan Court of Appeals recently concluded that those precautions did not deny a plaintiff in a civil case a fair trial.

Nicholas Meriwether, a university philosophy professor, referred to a student, Jane Doe, as sir instead of using a feminine pronoun. According to Meriwether, no one would assume Doe was a female based on Doe’s outward appearance. Doe demanded that Meriwether use feminine pronouns when he addressed her. Meriwether believed his religious beliefs “prevented him from communicating messages about gender identity that he believes are false.”

When it comes to billing, most law firm clients despise and forbid block billing, the practice of assigning a one-time entry for multiple tasks. The Michigan Court of Appeals, however, recently upheld the use of block billing – with the caveat that time entries must be “adequately detailed.”

Two courts applying Michigan law – one state court and one federal court – recently ruled, within weeks of one another, that the losses suffered by restaurants as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the governor’s executive orders were not covered by their commercial insurance policies.

In December 2021, the Michigan Supreme Court announced changes to the case evaluation process to take effect on January 1, 2022. Although the former process had support from a majority of trial court judges, it lost favor with practicing attorneys, partly due to elongated disposition times. Accordingly, the 2022 changes to the case evaluation process will likely awaken the power of Michigan’s Offers of Judgment rule.

Michigan has adopted new legislation that unintentionally may make Michigan cannabis companies and their insurers scramble to determine how to comply with onerous regulations around mandatory product liability insurance. Legislating insurance requirements in a highly regulated and evolving industry characterized by unknown risks should happen only when all stakeholders have been heard.

Following in the footsteps of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, the City of New York has enacted its own Biometric Identifier Information Act. Like its root, this new law is designed to protect and limit the use of consumers’ biometric data, which is highly personal and irreplaceable. Companies that fail to adhere to the new law may be subject to lawsuits and sizeable statutory damages.

Wilson Elser attorneys present the current statutory framework, recent changes to the law in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In August 2020, New York’s governor signed legislation that refined immunity for health care workers during the COVID-19 state of emergency. At the same time, Michigan’s governor vetoed a bill that would have revived her Executive Order extending such immunity until January 1, 2021. Health care providers in both New York and Michigan are advised to continue to provide prudent care because they cannot bank on any protection from COVID-19 immunity laws.