Dickinson Wright Attorney Gets Court Order Fixed for Canyon Partners!

On August 17, 2018, the Dickinson Wright law firm filed on behalf of a Canyon Partners’ affiliate a dispositive Motion For Partial Summary Disposition regarding the George in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  In layman terms, this was to ask the court for a foreclosure judgment on a $75 million property without a trial.  

As of August 17, 2018, the soonest that Dickinson Wright could schedule the motion hearing per the court rules was three weeks later on September 13, 2018. Apparently Dickinson Wright didn’t bother to check the Scheduling Order before filing the motion, which said: 

• All Discovery shall be CONCLUDED by 6-30-18… 

•       Dispositive motions shall be FILED AND HEARD by: 8-23-18…    

• The parties are to strictly comply with MCR 2.116 and the scheduling order…  

 • ALL DATES SHOULD BE CONSIDERED TO BE DATES CERTAIN AND SHALL NOT BE ADJOURNED WITHOUT GOOD CAUSE.  ANY REQUEST FOR ADJOURNMENT MUST BE BROUGHT BEFORE THE COURT IN THE FORM OF A MOTION…    

• All dates are date certain.  You must file a Motion to adjourn dates.  You are responsible for reading the small print on the scheduling order.   

• THIS DOCUMENT SERVES AS OFFICIAL NOTICE OF DATES.   

  Besides the Scheduling Order’s strict terms, the court rules say, “A party may not bring a motion for summary disposition … unless the motion is in compliance with the Scheduling Order governing dispositive motions.”  And, “A scheduling order may only be amended upon the filing of a motion, and after a finding of good cause shown…  To show good cause, the moving party must prove the reason for the adjournment…”   

Dickinson Wright did not bring their summary disposition in time to be heard before the August 23, 2018 deadline and never filed a motion to adjourn the date for dispositive motions.  Since Dickinson Wright never bothered to file a motion to amend the scheduling order, there of course could not have been any resulting ruling to amend the scheduling order “for good cause”.   

The property owner had earlier properly filed a motion to extend the June 30, 2018 discovery deadline to September 30, 2018, which was granted, but the pertinent dispositive motion deadline was not changed.

The property owner - which had owned the $75 million property for 17 years and never missed a loan payment – of course raised Dickinson Wright’s failures to meet these clear legal standards in its Response to the Motion for Partial Summary Disposition on September 6, 2018. 

After reading the property owner’s response which pointed out that Dickinson Wright’s motion was in clear violation of the Scheduling Order, Ariana Pellegrino secretly contacted the court clerk to get the scheduling order fixed!    

A single party communication between the court and any one side in a pending lawsuit is considered “clearly at odds with our adversary system of justice” and the Rules of Professional Conduct state that no lawyer shall seek to “communicate ex parte with a judge, juror, prospective juror, or other official concerning a pending matter, except as permitted by law.” 

On September 10, 2018, in response to Ariana Pellegrino’s unlawful overtures, the court clerk asked for a copy of the “problematic” scheduling order.  Why was the court clerk calling its own scheduling order “problematic”? What had Ariana Pellegrino secretly communicated to her before that email? The scheduling order was only “problematic” for Dickinson Wright and Canyon Partners, certainly not the long-time property owner which had abided by the scheduling order.     

For reasons which are unknown, the court quickly thereafter conceded to Pellegrino’s improper request, replying “Thanks Ariana, the Judge will extend the “Heard by” date to November 1, 2018 for the MSDs.  I will leave it to you to get a S/O circulated.  Thank you.  Laura.”  

“S/O” means a stipulation (amongst attorneys for the parties) and order for the judge to sign.  But no such S/O was ever signed!  And Dickinson Wright never filed a motion to amend the scheduling order and the court never amended the scheduling order to allow for the late motion. No amended scheduling order exists in the court record. 

Lacking any legitimate argument, Dickinson Wright argued for Canyon in their final written reply that the discovery deadline had been changed.  The discovery deadline was of course irrelevant and the Dispositive Motion deadline was the germane deadline which had NOT been extended. 

Dickinson Wright knew full well that no motion was ever filed to change the Dispositive Motion deadline so the firm had their Nonpartner Associate, Ariana Pellegrino, secretly contact the court to get it fixed. 

Ariana Pellegrino was able to fix the outcome of the proceedings – because if the Scheduling Order had been enforced as written, Dickinson Wright’s motion should have been dismissed outright and the property owner should have been able to call and cross-examine witnesses at a trial.  

Ariana Pellegrino’s secret, one-party communication with the court clearly was designed to save Dickinson Wright’s Motion for Partial Summary Disposition which should have been barred by the strict Scheduling Order.  

  Pellegrino’s improper communication was clearly intended to give Dickinson Wright’s client an unfair advantage, and affected the outcome of the proceedings, which was the complete loss of the $75 million property to the Canyon Partners hedge fund without ever having a hearing with witnesses.