Askew v. Ann Arbor Public Schools

In Pike v City of Wyoming, 431 Mich 589; 433 NW2d 768 (1988), a majority of this Court held that despite a prior, final award of benefits by the bureau, the doctrine of res judicata did not preclude the defendants from relitigating the issue of the plaintiffs wife’s dependency. It was my expressed view in Pike that the majority of this Court had based its decision, not upon the law of res judicata, but upon an ad hoc notion of public policy. In my dissent in Pike, I explained:

There may be matters of public policy so extraordinary as to justify a departure from res judicata principles.…