Jim Acho, a partner in our Livonia office, is representing a current Prosecutor in a unique employment case. Matt Wayne, an associate in our Livonia office, wrote the brief in this case and carved out a new public policy exception when USDC Judge Gershwin Drain found in favor of Acho/Wayne’s client on this issue. Had the argument failed, the case would have been lost. Said Mr. Acho: “We pride ourselves […]

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a new trial in a case won by Attorney Carol Smith in the Western District of Michigan. The plaintiffs’ appeal cited several alleged errors made by the trial court leading up to and during the jury trial. The court of appeals sided with Ms. Smith and her clients, bringing finality to this years-long legal battle. The lawsuit was filed by a Chicago-based […]

Noting that no published authority had yet addressed the interplay of the 2019 No-Fault amendments with pre-amendment case law for the “one year back rule,” the Michigan Court of Appeals has concluded that the amendments return the state of law to that provided in the 1986 Michigan Supreme Court ruling in Lewis v. Detroit Auto Inter-Ins. Exch., 426 Mich 93, and its progeny.  Notably, this includes the requirements that for […]

Jim Acho, a partner in our Livonia office, successfully represented the City of Detroit in a lawsuit filed by Detroit Police Commissioner Board Member Willie Burton. The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit last month, and yesterday denied the petition for rehearing rendering the case over. Burton was removed from the July 11, 2019 Board of Police Commissioners meeting at the Durfee Information […]

Ryan Miller, a partner in our Riverside, CA office, recently successfully defended a CMDA client against an $8,000,000 Claim. A female Plaintiff worker claimed she was sexually assaulted by her supervisor. Her supervisor denied the Claim, but he was still sued, along with the Company, by the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff hired three law firms to try her case. The Company vigorously defended the Claim, and Mr. Miller conducted a thorough […]

Rapper Cardi B recently defeated a tort and intellectual property lawsuit for misappropriation of likeness and invasion of privacy for using a picture of a heavily tattooed man, without his permission, as the subject of her album cover picture. The creator of the album cover skewed and altered an innocent picture of Plaintiff Kevin Brophy, where he is simply showing off his tattoo, to create an entirely different scenario. Critically, […]

Joseph M. Ramirez, an attorney in our Kansas City office, successfully defended a corporate client housing complex against a breach of warranty of habitability claim. Notwithstanding an overly aggressive and unreasonable demand by the tenant, Mr. Ramirez leverage his knowledge of landlord-tenant law against the facts in the case to obtain a highly favorable settlement on behalf of our client in an amount less than 10% of the total exposure. […]

Please join us in welcoming Michelle L. Richards to CMDA. An Of Counsel attorney in the Firm’s Livonia office, Ms. Richards has more than 15 years experience in civil litigation, with special emphasis on appellate practice on behalf of municipalities, insurance companies, and corporate entities. Further, she has significant transactional and corporate practice experience. Prior to joining CMDA, Ms. Richards worked for a national telecommunication company as the Director of […]

CMDA Attorneys Joel Ashton and Stanley Okoli recently had a third-party automobile negligence action dismissed on summary disposition in favor of the dealership that owned the automobile driven by the allegedly negligent driver. In this case, a car dealership customer was involved in an accident while driving a loaner vehicle owned and provided by the defendant dealership while it repaired the customer’s vehicle. The plaintiff, who also sued the customer […]

Joel Ashton and Stanley Okoli recently had dismissals upheld on two related Condominium Association cases in the Michigan Court of Appeals and Michigan Supreme Court. To say the least, these were contentious cases in which a co-owner experienced a sewer back-up in her basement in October 2016, with the alleged subsequent discovery of rod hole leaks in the foundation, for which she initially sued the Condominium Association, its insurer, the […]