We want to take this opportunity to address the status of two of our cases.

On April 14, 2020 our office filed a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of Michigan against Governor Gretchen Whitmer. In that case we argue that the stay-at-home Executive Orders infringed on our clients’ constitutional rights to associate under the 1st amendment and were a violation of the “Takings Claus” which says that the government can take private property for the public good but must offer just compensation. We have not yet filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on that case.

On April 23, 2020, our office filed a lawsuit in the Court of Claims against Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the Director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Daniel Eichinger, Attorney General for the State of Michigan, Dana Nessel. In that case we allege that the stay at home orders violated our clients’ right to travel intrastate (within the state) and the right to leave their home without first affording due process. We also allege that the Emergency Management Act was an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority to the executive.

When we filed the state case, we also sought an ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO) against the Governor, the Director of the NDR and the Attorney General. The TRO was denied but Judge Murray show caused the three Defendants compelling them to come forward and show to the court why a preliminary injunction should not be entered. The three Defendants were served with the complaint, motion, and show cause order last Wednesday, April 23, 2020. The next day, Executive Order 2020-59 was signed which met the goals of every specific request we made in our TRO request: travel between 2nd homes, travel within the state for the use of state lands, the use of motorized boats, landscapers going back to work, etc.; everything except a bar to the blanket stay-at-home order was addressed by the Governor herself before we even received a response from the Defendants. We proceeded with our preliminary injunction motion but all that was left for us to ask for was a total temporary bar of the entire Executive Order. This apparently was something the Judge was not willing to do as on April 29, 2020, the court denied our request for a preliminary injunction.

The cases are not finished, and we have a lot of work to do going forward. Although the court’s denial of the preliminary injunction was not what we wanted, we consider the entire endeavor a win in the short run and look forward to setting some precedence in the future.