Thursday, October 27, 2022

FFS, Get It Together Wayne County Circuit Court

So this morning I'm doing work and got a call a couple minutes ago from opposing counsel on a case, wanting to discuss the status conference from this morning on a case we have in Wayne County Circuit Court.

"What status conference from this morning?", I ask, somewhat perturbed.

Apparently there was one, and the court did not send me any notice of it at all, and thus I did not know and did not Zoom in accordingly.

Not the first time this has happened on this case, and it seems the only case I never get notices on, but it's getting well past ridiculous.

How ridiculous?

The Commercial landlord-Tenant case is running under two different files in the court:

It has both an Appeal from District Court (landlord-tenant possession only filed by the tenant after losing to me there) and a Circuit Court case (filed by us for the money owed from that landlord-tenant case) in front of the same judge.  

It's been going on since July 2020.  Yep, you read that right, it's over two and a half years old now.

I have a motions for summary disposition on their counter-claim in the money case that was filed over 2 years ago that the judge has still not set a hearing on or ruled on.  To put it in perspective, that should take around 28-60 days max to get heard, not 2+ years!

Two other summary motion,s and the appeal brief itself have been filed over a year and a half ago with no hearing or ruling in sight. Again, way outside appropriate timing for decisions to be made.

And for some reason, whenever the judge issues a status conference on the Appeals case, the court does not send me a notice.   Even though I show up on the electronic file and docket as the attorney of record, have an appearance in, and have filed a response to their appeal brief, I get nothing. Thus has happened at least three times now.

Rather disconcerting.

Even better, at the status conference held under the Circuit Case (which I actually got a notice and appeared for)  in early September, the court after noting we were there then stated they would call us for the conference.  But, the court  never got around to actually contacting us, so it never actually happened and nothing has moved even an inch in the case.

Still no dates on any of the motions, no action at all, no trial date -- which is probably good considering the motions should get rid of most of the case without a trial if they ever get heard.  

The cases just sits out there, waiting for the court to do its job.

A little notice while it considers doing its job may be too much to ask for though.

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