DISTRICT COURT UPDATE
Summons Article, October, 2006
written by
Hon. M. Randall Jurrens
An amendment to the landlord-tenant summary proceedings statute is the subject of this month’s update.
As you know, chapter 57 of the Revised Judicature Act, MCL 600.5701 et seq., governs summary proceedings to recover possession of leased premises (broadly defined to include “all manner of real property”, as well as structures fixed or mobile, temporary or permanent, intended for use as a dwelling or for storage).
In addition to recovery of possession, the statutory scheme also authorizes the joinder of related claims and counterclaims for money judgment otherwise within the district court’s $25,000 jurisdictional limit. This periodically causes the court to process landlords’ claims for labor they (or their property managers) personally expended to repair damage to the premises attributable to their tenants; or, conversely, claims for labor tenants expended to satisfy their landlords’ repair obligations.
By recently adding two new subsections to MCL 600.5739, the legislature directed that, in actions filed after 7-1-06, “the court shall award damages for labor expended [ by the landlord / property manager / tenant ] . . . in repairing the premises in the same manner as it would if the repairs were performed by a third party. [ The prevailing party’s labor ] . . . shall be compensated at a rate the court determines to be reasonable based on usual and customary charges for the repairs.”
Accordingly, in summary proceedings, recovery of money damages for physical injury to premises is not affected by the landlord (or its property manager) or the tenant personally effectuating the requisite repairs; but rather, must be valued at market rates.
However, having pronounced the proper measure of damages in landlord-tenant litigation, the legislature nonetheless left it to the courts to develop the proper methodology of determining the “usual and customary charges” entitled a prevailing party.
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