More appeals planned in battle over Rosa Parks estate
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Rosa & Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development co-founder and chairman of the board Elaine Steele of Detroit and her attorney Steven Cohen are photographed at Cohen's law office in Farmington Hills, Mich., on Friday, July 15, 2011. / Patricia Beck/Detroit Free Press
Wayne County Probate Judge Freddie Burton, Jr.in his courtroom in 2012. / Susan Tusa/Detroit Free Press
Rosa Parks sits in the front of a city bus, December 21, 1955, as a Supreme Court ruling, which banned segretation on Montgomery, Alabama's public transit vehicles, took effect.
The Michigan Court of Appeals today upheld Wayne County Probate Judge Freddie Burton Jr.'s handling of a contentious case involving the estate of civil rights icon Rosa Parks, shown in 1999, and said appeals of his rulings and are vexatious and should result in sanctions. / Patrick D. Witty/MCT
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LANSING — An attorney representing the major beneficiaries of the Rosa Parks estate said today he will appeal to the Michigan Supreme Court a ruling denying his appeals in the case and subjecting him to financial penalties.
Steven G. Cohen of Farmington Hills said a Michigan Court of Appeals opinion released Friday “whitewashed” erroneous rulings in the case involving the civil rights icon who died in Detroit in 2005.
Cohen, who represents Elaine Steele and the institute Steele founded with Parks in 1987, noted he earlier received a favorable ruling in the case from the Michigan Supreme Court in 2011. The case before Wayne County Probate Judge Freddie Burton, Jr. has been embroiled in controversy for years.
Friday’s Michigan Court of Appeals ruling upheld Burton’s rulings and sent the case back to the judge “for a determination of actual and punitive damages, including reasonable attorney fees,” to be assessed against Cohen for filing vexatious appeals.
The battle began when 13 nieces and nephews of Parks challenged the validity of her estate plan.
Cohen has accused Burton in court papers of conspiring with Detroit probate lawyers John Chase Jr. and Melvin Jefferson Jr. by allowing them to gouge the estate with excessive and unnecessary legal fees. Cohen said Burton improperly dismissed the lawsuit and then rejected Cohen’s disqualification motion.
Both Wayne County Chief Probate Judge Milton Mack Jr. and the Court of Appeals say Cohen has failed to present evidence to justify Burton’s removal.
“Other than insinuations, there was no record support of a conflict of interest or inappropriate conduct,” the three-judge panel sad. “Rather, the record only contains evidence that the probate judge rendered decisions that were adverse to appellants’ requests. This does not justify disqualification.”
Alan May, a Troy attorney representing Chase, said attorney fees and damages could be well into six figures.
“I’m very pleased for my clients,” May said. “They’ve been libeled and slandered and ridiculed, and now they have been vindicated.”
In 2011, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed Burton’s order putting Chase and Jefferson in charge of the estate in place of Parks’ designees — Steele, who was Parks’ longtime personal assistant, and retired 36th District Judge Adam Shakoor.
Parks made history on a public transit bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. She later settled in Detroit with her husband Raymond, who died in 1977.
Steven G. Cohen of Farmington Hills said a Michigan Court of Appeals opinion released Friday “whitewashed” erroneous rulings in the case involving the civil rights icon who died in Detroit in 2005.
Cohen, who represents Elaine Steele and the institute Steele founded with Parks in 1987, noted he earlier received a favorable ruling in the case from the Michigan Supreme Court in 2011. The case before Wayne County Probate Judge Freddie Burton, Jr. has been embroiled in controversy for years.
Friday’s Michigan Court of Appeals ruling upheld Burton’s rulings and sent the case back to the judge “for a determination of actual and punitive damages, including reasonable attorney fees,” to be assessed against Cohen for filing vexatious appeals.
The battle began when 13 nieces and nephews of Parks challenged the validity of her estate plan.
Cohen has accused Burton in court papers of conspiring with Detroit probate lawyers John Chase Jr. and Melvin Jefferson Jr. by allowing them to gouge the estate with excessive and unnecessary legal fees. Cohen said Burton improperly dismissed the lawsuit and then rejected Cohen’s disqualification motion.
Both Wayne County Chief Probate Judge Milton Mack Jr. and the Court of Appeals say Cohen has failed to present evidence to justify Burton’s removal.
“Other than insinuations, there was no record support of a conflict of interest or inappropriate conduct,” the three-judge panel sad. “Rather, the record only contains evidence that the probate judge rendered decisions that were adverse to appellants’ requests. This does not justify disqualification.”
Alan May, a Troy attorney representing Chase, said attorney fees and damages could be well into six figures.
“I’m very pleased for my clients,” May said. “They’ve been libeled and slandered and ridiculed, and now they have been vindicated.”
In 2011, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed Burton’s order putting Chase and Jefferson in charge of the estate in place of Parks’ designees — Steele, who was Parks’ longtime personal assistant, and retired 36th District Judge Adam Shakoor.
Parks made history on a public transit bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man. She later settled in Detroit with her husband Raymond, who died in 1977.
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