LANSING, Mich. (Legal Newsline) - The estate of an apprentice electrician who was killed on the job shouldn’t have been sanctioned for filing two wrongful death lawsuits against the church where the accident occurred, a Michigan appeals court ruled.
Acknowledging the better course would have been to amend the lawsuit, the Michigan Court of Appeals, in a Jan. 13 decision, nevertheless ruled a trial court went too far in sanctioning the estate of Eric French for filing the second suit.
French, an unlicensed apprentice, was electrocuted while performing work at Life Christian Church of Howell in 2017. Two years later, his estate sued the church, claiming negligence was to blame.
A few months later, the plaintiff’s lawyer, Loyst Fletcher, discovered that the church’s insurance policy named Life Christian Church International, not LCC Howell. Fletcher didn’t act on this for several months, but in June 2019 he asked the defense to amend the complaint to include LCC International. The defense lawyer refused, saying the plaintiff hadn’t spelled out a theory of liability against the second defendant.
The normal course at this point would be to ask the court for permission to amend. But Fletcher, citing Covid-related delays that could push the estate’s claims past the statute of limitations, filed a new lawsuit against LCC International instead. The defendants complained, and the trial judge dismissed the second case and ordered $3,254.50 in sanctions. The court cited the rules of joinder, which require plaintiffs to include all claims against the defendant arising from a single incident in a single lawsuit.
“This ruling was clearly erroneous,” the appeals court ruled. “The two parties were not the same, as defendant readily conceded (and strenuously argued in the circuit court).”
In fact, the statute of limitations is stayed while the court considers a request to amend, the appeals court noted. And the trial court did grant that permission, rendering the plaintiff’s complaint about not being able to sue the insured party moot.
While in hindsight plaintiff’s counsel’s choice to file a second action could be characterized as ill-advised, the second case was not frivolous, and defense counsel’s reflexive (and ultimately meritless) refusal to stipulate to an amendment should not result in a reward of sanctions,” the appeals court concluded. “Less than optimal litigation choices that are neither frivolous nor rise to the level of court rule violations are simply not sanctionable.”