New ruling in ongoing Rosa Parks Trust dispute

Another chapter, perhaps the last chapter, in the ongoing disputes regarding the Rosa Parks Trust has now been written. The Michigan Court of Appeals issued its unpublished decision in the case entitled In re Rosa Louise Parks Trust on February 20, 2014. This is the third time that the parties to the dispute have been before the appellate courts. The parties to this appeal included Elaine Steele and the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development, founded by Parks and Steele in 1987.

In the earlier decisions, the Supreme Court had upheld and ordered enforcement of a settlement agreement that the parties had previously negotiated and consummated, in particular the reinstatement of Elaine Steele and former judge Adam Shakoor as trustees and co-personal representatives of the estate, as nominated in the trust agreement. There had also been litigation over attorneys fees exceeding $120,000 incurred by a law firm.

After remand on the earlier decisions, the attorney for Steele and the Institute, not named in the opinion but identified in a Detroit Free Press article as Steven G. Cohen of Farmington Hills, Michigan, filed a petition naming the probate judge as a respondent, and charging that he had engaged in a conspiracy with the attorneys for other parties to disregard the trust's nomination of Steele and Shakoor and to replace them with "long-term probate court cronies." He then petitioned the probate judge to order his own disqualification based on claims that he was not impartial and that he was now a party to the proceedings. Other petitions followed.

In May 2012, the judge advised that he was taking the disqualification motion under advisement, and postponed the other petitions pending a decision on that motion. Thereafter, Cohen filed a proposed default and default judgment, submitted interrogatories (written questions) to the judge, and served him with a subpoena for deposition.

The probate judge ultimately denied the disqualification motion, dismissed the petition alleging conspiracy, and made rulings on other petitions.

The decision by the Court of Appeals includes the following rulings:

• The dismissal of the conspiracy petition was affirmed. The probate court had no jurisdiction to hear the conspiracy claim, since the issues in question had previously been ruled upon by the court, with no appeal filed. 
• The challenging parties had advanced no evidence to support claims of conflict of interest or inappropriate conduct which would warrant disqualification. Naming a judge as a party and then seeking his disqualification would open every litigated case to manipulation by any party, if permitted. 
• The court still had authority to make rulings on issues other than those directed by the previous appellate decisions reversing and remanding the case with instructions to enter one particular order. 
• The issues raised regarding the accountings filed by the fiduciaries were unsupported by legal arguments and thus were not preserved for appeal. 

In addition, on its own initiative, the Court of Appeals made a finding and ruling that Cohen's actions in seeking disqualification of the probate judge and pursuing the present appeal were entirely improper and that he had engaged in a vexatious appeal. The case was remanded for consideration of the proper sanction, which would involve the assessment of costs, attorneys fees, and punitive damages, and whether that sanction should be imposed on the client, the attorney, or both.