Rule 3.715.Definitions

MCR 3.715 is the vocabulary list for the extreme risk protection rules. It governs how words are read in MCR 3.716 through MCR 3.722, unless the context indicates otherwise. Two kinds of definitions sit side by side here: five terms the rule writes out in full, and eight it hands off to the Extreme Risk Protection Order Act, MCL 691.1803.

Why the rule defines complaint

Subrule (3) does more work than a definition usually does. A person who wants an extreme risk protection order is asking a court for relief, which in most settings would be called a petition. The Legislature instead used the words complaint and summons throughout the Extreme Risk Protection Order Act, MCL 691.1801 et seq. Subrule (3) reconciles the two: for the purposes of MCR 3.716 through MCR 3.722 only, a complaint means the act of petitioning the court to issue an extreme risk protection order.

The second half of subrule (3) carries the consequence. Petitioning the court this way commences an independent action, and it is not a motion as defined in MCR 2.119. That single line decides how these cases start, what they are captioned, and why they cannot be folded into a case already on the docket.

Terms the rule spells out

• Subrule (5) defines an existing action as an action in any court in which both the petitioner and the respondent are parties. It reaches pending and completed domestic relations actions, and other personal protection or extreme risk protection cases, and the list is not exhaustive.
• Subrule (8) sets the line for a minor at a person under the age of 18.
• Subrule (9) makes the petitioner the party seeking the order.
• Subrule (11) makes the respondent the party to be restrained by the order.

Terms borrowed from the statute

Subrules (4), (6), (7), and (10) point outward rather than defining anything themselves. Dating relationship, extreme risk protection order, family member, guardian, health care provider, law enforcement agency, law enforcement officer, and possession or control all take their meaning from MCL 691.1803. Each of those terms carries real weight elsewhere in the subchapter, so the statutory definition is where the answer lives.

The definitions are short, but they set up the machinery that follows. Who counts as a family member decides who may file. Whether something is an existing action decides what the complaint must disclose and, when the new case is filed in the same court, which judge it goes to. Whether a respondent is a minor changes venue and adds service obligations. Reading MCR 3.716 without this rule in hand leaves several of its terms floating.