Detroit News: Young, Kelly best choices for high court

Editorial: Young, Kelly best choices for high court
The Detroit News
Michigan in the past few months has become a very good place in which to be a plaintiff’s attorney. That’s not good for the law or the state’s economy. Incumbent Justice Bob Young and Wayne Circuit Judge Mary Beth Kelly are the best choices to restore the balance in Michigan law.

Young and Kelly are running against recently-appointed Justice Alton Thomas Davis and Oakland Circuit Judge Denise Langford Morris. While the Supreme Court candidates are listed on the nonpartisan section of the ballot, Young and Kelly were nominated at the state Republican political convention, while Thomas and Morris are the Democratic nominees. All of the nominees have solid judicial credentials and all are qualified to serve as justices of the Supreme Court.

But the law of Michigan is currently in turmoil. The working majority on the court changed with the election of Democrat Diane Marie Hathaway in 2008. In the 18 months since her election, the court has overturned more than a dozen legal precedents. And, in the words of incumbent Justice Stephen Markman, the court has “teed up” another half dozen precedents to be overturned when the justices’ next session begins this winter.

This rate of reversals renders all of the complaints from the previous Democratic minority of justices on the court about precedents being overturned hollow and hypocritical. And the fact is that many of the new reversals of prior precedents have served primarily to make it easier for plaintiff’s attorneys to bring lawsuits. In making it easier to bring lawsuits, the new majority has created uncertainty in the law and uncertainty in the state’s economy.

Lawsuits are essential to imposing liability for wrongdoing. But liability for lawsuits should be as closely related as possible to actual fault. The prior court, in which Young was in the majority, was respectful of the Legislature’s intent to channel and control liability.

Justice Robert P. Young has been on the high court since 1999. He came to the Supreme Court from the Michigan Court of Appeals, where he had served since 1995. Prior to that he served as vice president and general counsel to AAA Michigan and was with a major Detroit law firm. He is the author of the state Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Wayne County v. Hatchcock, which overturned the notorious Poletown case and protected private property from seizure by government for nonpublic purposes. He fully deserves to be returned to the court.

Judge Mary Beth Kelly served as chief judge of the state’s largest court, the Wayne Circuit Court, for six years. During that time she took on tough problems with the court, including working to speed up the Friend of the Court’s child support operations and getting more minorities on the court’s juries.

A Wisconsin Supreme Court justice once remarked that if a state’s highest court is working properly, it will issue conservative rulings when conservatives are writing the law in state legislatures and liberal rulings when legislative liberals are writing the law. The Michigan Legislature for the last 20 years has been either divided or dominated by conservatives. In our view, Mary Beth Kelly is likely to join Young in restoring balance to the court’s case law, putting the brakes on the current majority’s headlong rush to make this state a bonanza for plaintiff’s lawyers, by applying the law as written by state legislators.

Michigan residents will be well served if they vote for Bob Young and Mary Beth Kelly.



From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20101005/OPINION01/10050312/1007/rss07#ixzz11aS1Tsjl