STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
2841 COCHRANE, L.L.C., an Assignee of
FRANKLIN BANK,
UNPUBLISHED
April 10, 2012
Plaintiff/Counter-DefendantAppellee,
v
No. 298701
Wayne Circuit Court
LC No. 08-106583-CZ
ROSLYN D. PEOPLES,
Defendant/Counter-PlaintiffAppellant.
Before: WILDER, P.J., and OâCONNELL and WHITBECK, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
In this action to quiet title, defendant appeals the trial courtâs order granting plaintiffâs
motion for summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(10), on the basis of defendantâs
deemed admissions after defendant failed to timely respond to plaintiffâs requests for admissions.
This Court originally denied defendantâs application for a delayed appeal âfor lack of merit in
the grounds presented,â 2841 Cochrane, LLC v Peoples, unpublished order of the Court of
Appeals, entered January 13, 2011 (Docket No. 298701), but our Supreme Court, in lieu of
granting leave to appeal, thereafter remanded the case to this Court for consideration as on leave
granted. 2841 Cochrane, LLC v Peoples, 490 Mich 856; ___ NW2d ___ (2011). We affirm.
Summary disposition may be granted under MCR 2.116(C)(10) when âthere is no
genuine issue of material fact, and the moving party is entitled to judgment . . . as a matter of
law.â 1 This Court reviews a trial courtâs decision on a motion for summary disposition de novo.
1
Plaintiff moved for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(9) and (10). The trial court did
not specify the subrule under which it granted the motion. The former tests the legal sufficiency
of a defendantâs pleadings and evaluates whether the defendant pleaded a valid defense. Slater v
Ann Arbor Pub Sch Bd of Ed, 250 Mich App 419, 425; 648 NW2d 205 (2002). Because the trial
courtâs ruling was not based on a legal deficiency in the pleaded defense, but rather on the
absence of disputed issues of fact in light of defendantâs deemed admissions, we treat the trial
courtâs decision as having granted summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(10).
-1-
Maiden v Rozwood, 461 Mich 109, 118; 597 NW2d 817 (1999).
MCR 2.312 states, in pertinent part:
(B) Answer; Objection.
(1) Each matter as to which a request is made is deemed admitted unless,
within 28 days after service of the request, or within a shorter or longer time as
the court may allow, the party to whom the request is directed serves on the party
requesting the admission a written answer or objection addressed to the matter.
Unless the court orders a shorter time a defendant may serve an answer or
objection within 42 days after being served with the summons and complaint.
***
(D) Effect of Admission.
(1) A matter admitted under this rule is conclusively established unless the
court on motion permits withdrawal or amendment of an admission. For good
cause the court may allow a party to amend or withdraw an admission. The court
may condition amendment or withdrawal of the admission on terms that are just.
â[A]dmissions resulting from a failure to answer a request for admissions may form the basis for
summary disposition.â Medbury v Walsh, 190 Mich App 554, 556; 476 NW2d 470 (1991).
Defendant essentially argues that the trial court improperly granted summary disposition
on the basis of her deemed admissions because at a prior hearing on plaintiffâs motion to compel
discovery, the court orally agreed to give her an additional 14 days to respond to all discovery
requests, which included the requests for admissions.
Contrary to defendantâs assertions, the trial court did not permit withdrawal or
amendment of the deemed admissions at the March 2009 hearing on plaintiffâs motion to
compel. The court stated on the record that it was granting plaintiffâs motion to compel, which
was not directed at the requests for admissions, and the court gave defendant an additional 14
days to respond to the discovery requests. The court did not mention withdrawal or amendment
of defendantâs deemed admissions, much less make a finding of good cause to allow withdrawal
or amendment of the deemed admissions. Defendant relies on an exchange at the hearing on
plaintiffâs motion to compel in which plaintiffâs counsel referred to defendantâs failure to
respond to the requests for admissions to argue that the trial courtâs oral ruling allowing 14 days
to respond to discovery also extended to the requests for admissions. We disagree with
defendantâs interpretation of the trial courtâs ruling. Plaintiffâs counselâs reference to the
requests for admissions was made in the context of describing defendantâs lack of participation
in the case generally. In that exchange, plaintiffâs counsel also referred to defendantâs failure to
participate in the case evaluation. To the extent that the trial courtâs oral ruling could be
considered ambiguous with respect to whether the court was allowing withdrawal or amendment
of the deemed admissions and the filing of new answers, the written order submitted by plaintiff
pursuant to MCR 2.602(B)(3), which drew no objections from defendant, was not.
-2-
The courtâs written order did not allow withdrawal or amendment of the deemed
admissions, or grant defendant additional time to answer the requests for admissions. It only
granted relief with respect to the specific discovery matters (interrogatories, requests for the
production of documents, and notice of deposition) that plaintiff raised in its motion to compel.
Generally, a trial court speaks through its written orders, and not its oral pronouncements.
Tiedman v Tiedman, 400 Mich 571, 576; 255 NW2d 632 (1977). Defendantâs reliance on
McClure v H K Porter Co, Inc, 174 Mich App 499, 503-504; 436 NW2d 677 (1988), for the
proposition that âan oral ruling has the same force and effect as a written orderâ is misplaced
because that case did not involve an oral ruling that was at best ambiguous with respect to its
scope and a written order that was specific about its scope. Moreover, MCR 2.602(B)(2) states
that a court shall enter a submitted order âif, in the courtâs determination, it comports with the
courtâs decision.â The courtâs entry of the order indicates it concluded that the order comported
with its decision. For these reasons, we disagree with defendantâs contention that the trial court
granted her additional time to respond to the requests for admissions.
At the May 2009 hearing on plaintiffâs motion for summary disposition, the trial court
recognized that it could allow withdrawal of the deemed admissions for good cause and inquired
whether good cause existed. But rather than attempting to persuade the court that good cause
existed, defendant merely argued that the trial court had already ruled on the matter. The trial
court considered the order that followed the prior hearing and correctly stated that it did not
address requests for admissions. In light of defendantâs failure to respond as required by MCR
2.312, the absence of a formal motion to withdraw the deemed admissions, and the fact that the
order granting plaintiffâs motion to compel did not refer to the requests for admissions, the
course of action chosen by trial court, in effect refusing to allow amendment or withdrawal of the
deemed admissions, was not an abuse of its discretion. Medbury, 190 Mich App at 556-557.
With those admissions intact,2 the trial court did not err in granting plaintiffâs motion for
summary disposition because there was no genuine issue of material fact. Although defendant
asserts that she has a meritorious defense to plaintiffâs action, the existence of a meritorious
defense does not avoid the effect of a partyâs failure to respond to requests for admissions.
In light of our decision, it is unnecessary to address defendantâs argument that the trial
courtâs order granting summary disposition to plaintiff improperly ordered that defendantâs
notice of lis pendens be withdrawn.
Affirmed.
/s/ Kurtis T. Wilder
/s/ Peter D. OâConnell
/s/ William C. Whitbeck
2
The requests for admissions were extensive and included âPlease admit that Defendantâs rights
in the property expired on February 28, 2008,â and âPlease admit that Defendant has no further
rights in the property.â
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