Personal injury attorney examines the Michigan Supreme Court Justice’s judicial history for clues on how she will treat accident victims in 2011.

This is a continuation of my partner Dave Christensen’s presidents column for the Negligence Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan. Yesterday, we posted the introduction, What will Michigan personal injury law be in 2011?

Dave left off his letter by stating that all personal injury lawyers are well-acquainted with Justice Robert P. Young’s record on tort and insurance matters, but there are few clues to the beliefs of incoming Justice, Mary Beth Kelly. Today, Dave will examine the clues:

With few exceptions, Justice Young has ruled against injured and deceased individuals’ right to a jury trial, and in favor of the insurance industry interests. He has not hesitated to overturn very old and widely accepted precedent that he disagreed with and correct it with his preferred version of law. He makes no secret of the fact that he does not feel constrained by, what many believe is, the common law’s sole legitimizing principle: stare decises.

Justice Young has given us no reason to believe his views have recently changed.  In fact, he may have signaled a newly inspired mission against the injured and deceased victims of wrongdoing by declaring in the newspaper that: “if they shoot at the king, they better kill him,” just the day following the election.   This statement was pointedly aimed at personal injury lawyers as the representatives of injured victims, and at the Democratic Party.  Irrespective of the judgment of such an utterance by an allegedly neutral sitting Supreme Court Justice, it should not be overlooked that such attacks strike more at the innocent victims of wrongdoing that personal injury lawyers represent, than it strikes at their attorneys.

But, be he a king or merely a Justice on the Court, Justice Young does not necessarily have the last word.

Michigan Supreme Court Justice Mary Beth Kelly’s judicial background

The unknown factor in this Court is the newest Justice, Mary Beth Kelly.  Her judicial background consists of 11 years in Wayne County Circuit Court’s family division, so her judicial views concerning the Constitutional right to trial in civil cases remains largely undocumented.  But, let’s see what clues may exist.

Justice Mary Beth Kelly was appointed to the Wayne County bench by Gov. Engler in 1999. As a judge in the family division, she established a docket for dealing with runaway teens.  She was appointed Chief Judge by the Supreme Court after only two years on the bench.  She asked not to be re-appointed as Chief Judge in 2007.

During her term as Chief Judge, Mary Beth Kelly experienced some conflict when she attempted to privatize the Friend of the Court system, which brought protests from labor.  She also instituted a new system for assigning attorneys for runaway children that resulted in far fewer attorneys representing more child-clients.  A lawsuit filed against her alleged that the new system violated the children’s right to counsel and effective representation when she removed hundreds of individual attorneys and replaced them with hand-picked attorney groups being paid a fixed fee.  Judge Kelly stated that the moves were motivated by budget concerns and were not political.

Justice Mary Beth Kelly has spent over 10 years as a judge in a court where real people’s problems are front and center every day. She has not spent her career in an insulated appellate court where real litigants are rarely seen and never heard. Nor has she spent her career hypothesizing in law review articles.

Every day, she has seen real people with real problems who are really hurting.  She has undoubtedly worked hard to help them, too.  She is the only Republican Justice who has this background as a judge. Perhaps her front-line experience of grappling with complex human problems will help her remember the role of the courts as the literal hand of justice that can touch real people in great need.  The jury trial is the constitutionally protected mechanism for accessing that justice.  Every time that right is circumscribed, many people will suffer. It is hoped that her principles would be informed by her years working to help kids and families in great pain.

One of this Section’s missions is to protect the right to trial by jury. Justice Mary Beth Kelly’s professed in her campaign to have great respect for the founding fathers’ wise intentions. Can we expect that her rulings should therefore will agree with the Founding Fathers’ steadfast belief in the importance of the jury trial as a pillar of democracy, and its critical role in conflict resolution in a civil society?  That is, after all, why this right is enshrined in the Constitution: right alongside the right to free speech and the right to bear arms. It is no less cemented in the fabric of the people’s absolute rights.  For the government, including this Court, to chip away at this right, piece by piece, is absolutely contrary to true conservative values.

- David E. Christensen is president of the Negligence Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan, the professional organization for all personal injury lawyers in Michigan. He is a personal injury attorney, partner of Michigan Auto Law and is known for his experience in traumatic brain injury and psychiatric injury cases related to car accidents.

Tomorrow, we’ll run the third portion of Dave’s letter: Who do you think is going to win most of the cases this term, personal injury attorneys or defense lawyers?

Related information:

Personal injuries from car accidents

Robert P. Young: The Michigan Supreme Court Justice who thinks he doesn’t have to follow the law

Michigan Supreme Court blogs

Michigan Auto Law is the largest law firm exclusively handling car accident, truck accident and motorcycle accident cases throughout the entire state. We have offices in Farmington Hills, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Sterling Heights to better serve you. Call (800) 777-0028 for a free consultation with a personal injury lawyer.