Long Term Disability Insurance Lawyer Blog
This Blog is normally devoted to issues surrounding long term disability insurance and other related issues. However, in case you haven’t noticed we have an election just around the corner and I want to try to provide some information to the public about the state of the law in Michigan and in particular how one judge up for reelection has affected the legal landscape. I hope to post new enties regularly as we approach election day.
Michigan Supreme Court Justice Cliff Taylor, who is up for reelection, has repeatedly turned the law on its head to the benefit of insurance companies and big business at the expense of the average Michigan citizen. Following is one example.
JUSTICE TAYLOR EVISCERATES ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS
According to Republican Michigan Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Weaver-
Fellow republican Justice Taylor has “eviscerated environmental laws intended to protect Michigan’s natural resources, leaving Michigan residents helpless to protect those resources threatened by environmental harm.
Justice Weaver continues that Taylor has taken the opportunity to finish what was started in Nat’l Wildlife: to deprive the people of Michigan of the ability to protect the natural resources of this state:
[t]he majority disregards the intent of the Legislature, erodes the people’s constitutional mandate, and overrules 30 years of Michigan case law that held that the Legislature meant what it said when it allowed “any person” to bring an action in circuit court to protect natural resources from actual or likely harm.
In the Nestle Waters decision Justice Taylor turns logic on its head in a classic case of judicial activism determines that MCL 324.1701(1), which authorizes “any person” to bring a MEPA (Michigan Environmental Protection Act) claim doesn’t really mean that “any person” can bring a MEPA claim.
To read the decision go to http://coa.courts.mi.gov/documents/opinions/final/sct/20070725_s130802_168_nestle130802-op.pdf