OAN Staff Blake Wolf
4:46 PM – Friday, August 30, 2024
On Friday, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled against businesses and college students seeking compensation in relation to the COVID-19 lockdowns in 5-2 majority rulings.
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The series of lawsuits from a number of businesses argued that although the government has a responsibility to manage public health crises, they were entitled to compensate affected entities due to the government’s taking of private property.
However, a court of appeals in Michigan ruled against the plaintiffs, arguing that the state government was not taking private property in 2022.
“The property clearly still had value, even if no revenue or profit was generated during the closure,” the court stated at the time. “And any lost value relative to the real and personal property was likely recovered as soon as the temporary prohibition was lifted.”
The two judges opposing the decision, Justice David Viviano and Justice Richard Bernstein, believe that the court should have agreed to hear the full appeals.
With the ruling, the court damages the “credibility of the judiciary to serve as a bulwark of our liberty and ensure that the government does not take private property without just compensation – even in times of crisis,” Viviano stated.
Additionally, the court also ruled against lawsuits posed by college students who were seeking refunds, arguing that online classes were not adequate substitutions for the in-person classes they had paid for and were registered for.
The appeals court stated that the plaintiffs “failed to demonstrate that the defendant universities breached any contractual agreement with them.”
Again, Justice Viviano and Justice Bernstein took issue with the ruling, as Viviano stated: “Plaintiffs do not argue that the universities failed to provide the classes for which they registered, but instead argue that once the pandemic began the universities did not provide the classes in the format for which the students registered.”
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