MUSKEGON CNTY ROAD COMM V MARY L PREMO
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
MUSKEGON COUNTY ROAD COMMISSION,
UNPUBLISHED
November 13, 2008
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v
No. 280300
Muskegon Circuit Court
LC No. 06-044891-CH
MARY L. PREMO, LAWRENCE S.
VIHTELIC, and LILLIAN VIHTELIC
Defendants-Appellees.1
MUSKEGON COUNTY ROAD COMMISSION,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v
MARY L. PREMO, LAWRENCE S. VIHTELIC,
and LILLIAN VIHTELIC,
No. 282104
Muskegon Circuit Court
LC No. 06-044891-CH
Defendants-Appellants.
Before: Markey, P.J., and Sawyer and Kelly, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
In Docket No. 280300, plaintiff Muskegon County Road Commission appeals as of right
the trial court’s order granting defendants summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10)
because plaintiff lacked standing to challenge defendants’ title to certain real property. In
Docket No. 282104, defendants appeal as of right the trial court’s order denying their motion for
sanctions. This Court consolidated the two appeals. Muskegon Co Road Comm’n v Premo,
1
This matter originally involved 43 additional defendants, however, for various reasons, they are
not involved in this appeal.
-1-
unpublished order of the Court of Appeals, entered December 21, 2007 (Docket Nos. 280300,
282104). We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.
I. Facts and Procedural History
In 2004, defendants successfully quieted title to the disputed property, a road end
abutting a lake in Fruitland Township. Defendants sought to quiet title only after plaintiff
disavowed any interest in the property and asserted that the road was not adopted into the county
road system under the McNitt Act, MCL 247.669. In December 2004, defendants learned that
Fruitland Township had requested plaintiff to abandon the disputed property so that the township
could establish the road end as a public highway. Plaintiff commenced the abandonment process
and quit claimed any interest it had in the property to the township.
A lawsuit then ensued between defendants and the township, in which defendants again
sought to quiet title in the property. The township contended that it held title to the property
under the highway by user statute and because plaintiff had given it a quitclaim deed to the
property. The township also filed a motion for joinder, requesting that plaintiff be added as a
necessary party, which the trial court denied. Defendants moved for summary disposition. The
trial court granted the motion finding the township failed to comply with the procedural
requirements of the highway by user statute. The trial court then entered a judgment quieting
title in defendants. On appeal, this Court affirmed the trial court’s decisions because (1) the
township did not follow the appropriate procedures to establish title through the highway by user
statute, and (2) denial of joinder was appropriate because plaintiff was not a necessary party to
the action since it “explicitly disavowed having any interest in the property.” Premo v Fruitland
Twp, unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued June 14, 2007 (Docket No.
271079) (hereinafter Premo I).
In the meantime, before this Court even issued its opinion in Premo I, plaintiff, at the
township’s request, brought the instant action to quiet title in the disputed property based on
theories of common law dedication, acquisition through highway by user, and adverse possession
or prescriptive easement. Defendants moved for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10),
alleging the disputed property was never a county road; plaintiff had disclaimed all interest in the
property; the facts were insufficient to establish a highway by user claim, and plaintiff never
demonstrated a claim of right sufficient to support a claim of adverse possession or prescriptive
easement. The trial court granted this motion in part.
Defendants then filed a second motion for summary disposition, alleging that plaintiff
lacked standing to bring suit. The trial court granted defendants summary disposition, reasoning
that plaintiff had quit claimed any interest it had in the property; and therefore, plaintiff did not
have standing to file a quiet title action. Defendants moved for sanctions, alleging that plaintiff’s
lawsuit was frivolous. The trial court denied defendants’ motion, stating that the “issue is close”
and that plaintiff had “a good-faith, arguable basis for filing this action, notwithstanding the
existence of the previous quit claim deed to Fruitland Township.”
II. Standards of Review
This Court reviews de novo the lower court’s decision regarding a motion for summary
disposition brought under MCR 2.116(C)(10). Houdek v Centerville Twp, 276 Mich App 568,
-2-
572; 741 NW2d 587 (2007). Whether a party has standing to bring an action is a question of law
this Court reviews de novo. Michigan Ed Ass’n v Superintendent of Pub Instruction, 272 Mich
App 1, 4; 724 NW2d 478 (2006). Lastly, we review the trial court’s decision to award sanctions
for a frivolous claim for clear error. John J Fannon Co v Fannon Prods, LLC¸ 269 Mich App
162, 168; 712 NW2d 731 (2005).
III. Standing
Plaintiff argues the trial court erred in finding that plaintiff lacked standing to file its
quiet title claim. We disagree. In Lee v Macomb County Board of Commissioners, 464 Mich
726, 739-740; 629 NW2d 900 (2001), our Supreme Court adopted the federal test for standing as
a supplement to Michigan’s standing jurisprudence. That test, articulated in Lujan v Defenders
of Wildlife, 504 US 555; 112 S Ct 2130; 119 L Ed 2d 351 (1992), requires that a plaintiff “must
have suffered an ‘injury in fact’—an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete
and particularized, and (b) ‘actual or imminent, not “conjectural” or “hypothetical.”’ ” Lee,
supra at 739, citing Lujan, supra at 560 (citations omitted in original). In addition, plaintiff must
demonstrate that his or her “substantial interest will be detrimentally affected in a manner
different from the citizenry at large;” the injury must be personal and immediate. House Speaker
v Governor, 443 Mich 560, 572; 506 NW2d 190 (1993) (citation and quotation marks omitted);
see also Nat’l Wildlife Federation v Cleveland Cliffs Iron Co, 471 Mich 608, 615; 684 NW2d
800 (2004).
Applying the test in the present matter, it is plain that plaintiff has failed to establish
injury in fact. Plaintiff does not have any legally identifiable interest in the disputed property;
the property was never incorporated into the county road system as part of the McNitt Act2, and
plaintiff never obtained any interest in the road end. Furthermore, even assuming that plaintiff
had had some interest in the property, plaintiff would nonetheless lack standing because plaintiff
quitclaimed all of its supposed interest in the property to the township before the instant case was
even filed. In other words, plaintiff gave away whatever interest it had (which was none) when it
quitclaimed its “interest” in the property. “It is settled law in this state that a quit claim deed
transfers any interest the grantor may have in the lands, whatever its nature.” Roddy v Roddy,
342 Mich 66, 69; 68 NW2d 762 (1955). The trial court properly found that plaintiff has no
“legally protected interest” on which it can afford standing. See Lee, supra at 739.
Plaintiff argues that it has standing because its quitclaim deed, as allegedly determined by
this Court in Premo I, was deficient; therefore, title reverted to plaintiff. This argument must
fail, as plaintiff’s contention is factually inaccurate. A review of Premo I shows that this Court
never declared the quitclaim deed deficient. Rather, in Premo I, this Court rejected the
township’s argument that plaintiff had transferred its right to sue via the quitclaim deed because
no such right existed under the highway by user statute. Premo I, at 1-2.
2
1931 PA 130, repealed by 1951 PA 51, § 21. The current version of the McNitt Act is codified
at MCL 247.669.
-3-
Plaintiff also asserts that the deed was deficient because the trial court in Premo I
allegedly held that the township cannot hold title to the subject property under the McNitt Act,
so, title reverted to plaintiff. Again, this argument is factually and legally incorrect. The trial
court’s opinion in Premo I did not conclude that the township was legally incapable of holding
title to the subject property. Rather, the trial court agreed with defendants that “a township may
not be the public body which accepts by implication a public highway by use.” Moreover,
plaintiff cites no other convincing authority in support of its contention. Plaintiff relies on
Badeaux v Ryerson, 213 Mich 642; 182 NW 22 (1921), for its contention that a quitclaim deed
conveyed to a grantee that cannot legally hold title, an Indian tribe in the Badeaux case, reverts
to the grantor. But, the township in this matter is not an Indian tribe, and plaintiff points to no
authority, statutory or otherwise, that would prevent the township from holding title.
Plaintiff next asserts, relying on Detroit Public Schools Board of Education v Romulus
Community Schools Board of Education, 227 Mich App 80; 575 NW2d 90 (1997), that it has
standing based on its inherent statutory authority over public roads. In Detroit Public Schools,
the Detroit board of education faced a cognizable injury-in-fact: The Detroit school board was at
risk of losing state aid funding for Detroit pupils located in its district if it used its statutory
authority to approve the enrollment of students at the Romulus-Baron Academy. Id. at 81-84. In
this matter, unlike in Detroit Public Schools, plaintiff has not identified, and we have been
unable to locate, any specific grant of statutory authority that gives plaintiff any type of
particularized interest over the disputed property. Rather, plaintiff merely alleges that its general
grant of “authority over public roads located in townships within its jurisdiction” should be
sufficient to confer standing. However, the road end was never adopted into the county road
system, is not a public road, and, accordingly, plaintiff does not have jurisdiction over the
property pursuant to the statutory provisions that plaintiff cites.3 See MCL 224.1 et seq.; McNitt
Act, MCR 247.1, et seq.
Because plaintiff did not have standing to initiate this action, the trial court did not err in
granting defendants summary disposition.
IV. Sanctions
Defendants argue that the court erred in failing to award sanctions against plaintiff for
allegedly filing a frivolous lawsuit. We agree. A party is subject to costs under MCR 2.114(F) if
it pleads “a frivolous claim or defense . . . .” A party’s claim is frivolous if “[t]he party had no
reasonable basis to believe that the facts underlying that party’s legal position were in fact true
3
Plaintiff also relies on Wayne County Chief Executive v Governor, 230 Mich App 258; 583
NW2d 512 (1998), for its proposition that it should have standing because it represents the
public’s “interest.” Plaintiff’s reliance on this case is misplaced. Governor granted a
government entity standing based on the Headlee Amendment, Const 1963, art 9 §29, which
specifically gives public entities and individuals standing to bring suit as taxpayers. Id. at 269
271. Governor is irrelevant to the standing analysis in this matter.
-4-
[or t]he party’s legal position was devoid of arguable legal merit.” MCL 600.2591(3). With
respect to this inquiry, this Court has stated the following:
The frivolous claims provisions impose an affirmative duty on each attorney to
conduct a reasonable inquiry into the factual and legal viability of a pleading
before it is signed. LaRose Market, Inc v Sylvan Ctr, Inc, 209 Mich App 201,
210; 530 NW2d 505 (1995). The reasonableness of the inquiry is determined by
an objective standard. Id. The focus is on the efforts taken to investigate a claim
before filing suit, and a determination of reasonable inquiry depends on the facts
and circumstances of the case. Id. The attorney’s subjective good faith is
irrelevant. Lloyd v Avadenka, 158 Mich App 623, 630; 405 NW2d 141 (1987).
[Attorney General v Harkins, 257 Mich App 564, 576; 669 NW2d 296 (2003).]
After reviewing the record, it is clear that a reasonable inquiry into the factual and legal
basis of plaintiff’s complaint would have quickly demonstrated a lack of any legal or factual
basis to support its claims. The record shows that plaintiff had abundant reason to believe that its
complaint lacked both legal and factual support. Before the first judgment quieting title in
defendants in 2004, plaintiff repeatedly disavowed any interest in the disputed property and
openly acknowledged that its records reflected that the property was not a county road. In
addition, despite having no interest in the property, plaintiff then quitclaimed a deed to the
township in January 2005, which divested it of any interest it may arguably have had. After the
township lost its litigation against defendants in Premo I, the township requested plaintiff file
suit against defendants in order to acquire title to the property and offered to defray the costs of
the litigation. Thus, with full knowledge that it had disclaimed any interest in the disputed
property and had quitclaimed any interest it may have had to the township, facts the trial court in
Premo I explicitly noted, plaintiff nonetheless filed suit to quiet title in the property based on the
township’s request and offer to defray the cost of litigation. The trial court clearly erred in
denying sanctions because had plaintiff undertaken any reasonable inquiry, it would have
discovered that its claims were devoid of any legal or factual merit.
Plaintiff contends that its complaint had legal merit because it was supported by case law
and the trial court’s opinion and order in Premo I. The trial court’s decision in Premo I does not
support plaintiff’s position that it was reasonable for plaintiff to believe that its quitclaim deed to
the township had no force and effect. Nowhere in that court’s opinion and order did it find that
plaintiff’s quitclaim deed was void. Rather, the court merely stated that the “quit claim deed
conveyed no interest of any kind to [Fruitland Township].” As such, plaintiff’s argument is
disingenuous. The other case law that plaintiff cites in support of its contention that the deed
was void and that its interests in the disputed property reverted to it are inapplicable to the facts
of this case.
Plaintiff also argues that sanctions were not appropriate because the trial court failed to
warn it that its claim was frivolous. We disagree. Nothing in the court rules or MCL 600.2591
necessitates that the court warn a party of the frivolity of its claim in order to justify sanctions.
Lastly, plaintiff argues that defendants’ motion for sanctions was untimely but fails to
cite any authority in support and only gives this matter cursory treatment on appeal. Thus, we
consider this argument abandoned. Goldstone v Bloomfield Twp Public Library, 268 Mich App
642, 658; 708 NW2d 740 (2005).
-5-
Under the circumstances presented here, we conclude that the court clearly erred when it
denied defendants’ motion for sanctions and, accordingly, reverse the order denying sanctions.
Accordingly, we affirm in part, reverse in part and remand for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion. We do not retain jurisdiction.
/s/ Jane E. Markey
/s/ Kirsten Frank Kelly
-6-
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
