Court Of Appeals Holds Attorney’s Statements To State Bar Of Michigan Protected By Absolute Immunity Even If False
COA Opinion Published: May 13, 2025 (Borrello, Riordan, Patel)
COA Docket No. 370456
Allegan County Circuit Court
Holding: The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision to grant summary disposition in favor of Defendants, an attorney and his law firm. The Court reasoned that Defendants were immune from tort liability when speaking to the State Bar of Michigan’s character-and-fitness committee regarding Plaintiff, a law school graduate, even if their statements could have been false or misleading.
Facts: Plaintiff graduated law school in 2014 and began working as a paralegal for Defendants in 2015. In early 2016, Defendants fired Plaintiff due to his unsatisfactory work performance. At the end of 2020, Plaintiff sought admission to the State Bar of Michigan. As part of its character-and-fitness investigation of the plaintiff, the State Bar of Michigan reached out to Defendants. Defendants told the State Bar’s Character and Fitness Committee that Plaintiff’s “work product was not up to the firm’s standards,” indicating this was the reason he was dismissed from the firm. Plaintiff subsequently filed claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) and injurious falsehood against the Defendants.
Defendants moved for summary disposition, arguing the statements given to the Character and Fitness Committee were protected by absolute immunity under Rule 15, Section 10 of the Rules Concerning the State Bar of Michigan (SBM Rule 15). SBM Rule 15 provides that “[a] person is absolutely immune from suit for statements and communications transmitted solely to the State Bar staff” during a character-and-fitness investigation. Plaintiff claimed that Defendants’ statements to the character-and-fitness committee were false and perjurious, which negated any grant of immunity.
The trial court granted summary disposition for the Defendants, citing SBM Rule 15 and reasoning that Plaintiff failed to establish that “he does not have a license to practice law in the State of Michigan because of this single statement by Defendant[s].”
Key Appellate Ruling:
The trial court did not err in granting summary disposition in favor of Defendants. Although Plaintiff alleged that SBM Rule 15 does not provide absolute immunity from perjury, the Court of Appeals ruled that the relationship between absolute immunity and perjury is not relevant and, regardless of whether the statements at issue could be false, absolute immunity could still protect Defendants from tort liability.
The Court of Appeals cited various cases to support its decision, including:
Deters v Hammer, which held that “a statement made in a judicial proceeding enjoys an absolute privilege against a defamation action as long as the allegedly defamatory statement is reasonably related to the proceeding in which it appears,” and this absolute privilege “shelter[s] knowingly false statements.” Similar to Deters, Defendants statements to the State Bar in this case were privileged from tort liability because they were reasonably related to the proceedings in which they were given.
Petiprent v Jaskowski, which held the “general rule is that a party protected by absolute immunity is shielded from all tort liability.”
Am Transmissions, Inc v Attorney General, where the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that “absolute immunity applies regardless of whether the defendant acted in good faith.”
In re Mardigian Estate, which held that, under MCL 600.904, the Michigan Supreme Court has “the authority to create and regulate the State Bar of Michigan,” including SBM Rule 15.
The Court ultimately concluded that, because absolute immunity protects against all tort liability, and because absolute immunity applies to statements that may allegedly be false, Defendants could not be sued by Plaintiff for intentional infliction of emotional distress and injurious falsehood. Therefore, the Court ruled that summary disposition in favor of Defendants was appropriate.
