Hecht v. National Heritage Academies, Inc.
Docket No. 150616
Trial Lawyers’ Bottom Line: The statute, MCL 380.1230b, completely immunizes a school from having its required disclosures entered as evidence against the school in any action.
The first half of the opinion is a facts-driven analysis of the trial court’s JNOV decision. The jurisprudentially significant discussion comes in the second half. At issue was MCL 380.1230b, which operates when a person is applying for a job at a Michigan school. The statute requires the applicant’s current or former employer to disclose to the school any unprofessional conduct by the applicant. The statute then grants immunity to the current or former employer from “civil liability” for disclosing the information. The question is how far this immunity extends.
In this case, the plaintiff was fired from his job as a schoolteacher. When trying to apply for other jobs, the school made the statutorily-mandated disclosures. The plaintiff eventually sued the school claiming that it had fired him because of his race in violation of the Michigan Civil Rights Act. At trial, he introduced the disclosures to show he was prevented from obtaining new employment because every time he was about to receive a job offer, the potential employers would receive the school’s records of his professional transgressions and withdraw the offer.
The school argued that the statute precluded the plaintiff from introducing the disclosures at trial. But the plaintiff argued that the statute only granted immunity to the school for liability arising from the disclosures themselves—such as a defamation case. The plaintiff asserted that because he was suing the school for violating the CRA, the statute’s grant of immunity did not apply.
The majority opinion, authored by Chief Justice Young, defined “liability” as being “legally obligated for civil damages.” Thus, to be immune from “liability” meant to be completely immune from “any civil damages” that resulted from making the required disclosures. The Court said this precluded the plaintiff from presenting the disclosures as evidence of damages at trial. Because of this, the Court vacated future damages—which totaled $485,000.
In dissent, Justice McCormack makes clear that damages and liability are distinct. The statute protects against liability, that is, being on the hook for a legal wrong. But she asserts that the majority is protecting the school from being susceptible to additional damages, which is something wholly different from being immune from liability. Justice McCormack, joined by Justice Bernstein, suggests that presenting the evidence of the disclosures did not create additional legal responsibility; it merely made the damages worse. Thus, the statute does not preclude presenting evidence of the disclosures.