Big Win for Drones! Ep. 6.296

welcome once again to Latos law here's Steve Leto we're gonna take a deep dive into something right now regarding drones and I've had several people contact me and ask me to do an update a story about something happening in Michigan regarding drones and the interesting thing is that there's a case that just got decided yesterday and I've got a copy of the opinion in my hand signed by the judge and this is important because drone law is one of those things that's evolving as we speak I try not to talk about things that are unsettled without saying by the way this is very unsettled law and several people told me that there's a case pending in Genesee County Circuit Court Michigan which is where Flint is located you may have heard of Flint and this case involves drone usage and so while it was pending I thought well I'm gonna wait to see what happens because I need to I'd rather talk about it after it happens and explain the outcome because that's what affects us all if I'd done an update earlier I'd have to say well we've wait and see what happens so what happened is this a case called Michigan coalition of drone operators and Robert Harrison versus Genesee County Genesee County Parks Commission and some other individuals and this is a case that was filed in Genesee County Circuit Court and in front of Judge Joseph Farah and what happened was this case got filed as a civil action as a lawsuit but in essence the parties were looking for a court to make a ruling and enter injunctive relief actually issued an injunction to stop somebody from doing something I'll explain you what that is the question is this can a county Genesee County prohibit the use of drones in its parks consistently with state and federal statutes to address this question of course must the court must examine the statutes in play the parties briefs and the evidentiary hearing held to consider whether the county's ban on drone flying can coexist with state and federal legislation so here's what's going on is a county in a big state the state out of it and the county had a rule against flying drones over their parks on December 8th 2018 Robert Harrison was in Crossroads village which is a Genesee County Park property that is managed by Genesee County Parks Commission while on the land Harrison operated an unmanned aerial system which we'll call it drone he was approached by two Genesee County Park Rangers in order to desist from further flying Harris was then arrested handcuffed placed in the back of Ag CPC vehicle and had his drone iPhone and iPad confiscated the Rangers sighted Harrison with a misdemeanor for violation of the park rules which at the time said no person shall make any ascent or descent in any balloon airplane or parachutes on any land or waters administered by or under the jurisdiction of the Commissioner its agent or except as may be necessary and invents an emergency hey once in a lot of the laws aren't updated as quickly as they should be but balloons airplanes and parachutes and by the way it's extremely difficult to make it an ascent in a parachute I know what people are to say Steve there are power to parachutes that can take off but when a flying wing isn't it on December 13th 2018 the G CPC voted to revise its park rules to include drones now keep in mind that the man was arrested on December 8th so they are going to revise their park rules after he's been arrested just pointing that out the new rule said no person shall upon the property administered by the Commission make any ascent or descent operator possess any balloon airplane parachute drone manned or unmanned aircraft on Commission property so they included drones when they realized that Oh drones aren't covered by balloons airplanes and parachutes on January 2nd 2019 counsel for Harrison was informed that the Civil Division of the Genesee County Prosecutor's Office was not pursuing the warrant asked for by the G CPC as a result has seized property was returned to him which is a blessing in disguise because quite frankly quite arrest somebody and and and keep their stuff and say oh by the way you're free to go so they gave him back his stuff that's a step in the right direction but it doesn't solve the problem on April 3rd 2019 the G CPC was informed of the intent of a group of drone enthusiasts to appear at a park for a drone fly in and of course this group had decided to do this because they wanted to test the laws because their position was that this particular local park rule is not enforceable but we'll get to that this prompted somebody for the G CPC to inform the enthusiasts that such activity would violate park rules and that each pilot would need to apply and pay for a Genesee County parks and recreational drone permit it's now everyone's going bingo that's what this is all about but after this communication the chief Ranger Kevin Shan lien ordered the EA Cummings Center closed so he basically just said ok they're not gonna play along we're it's gonna close the park the enthusiasts moved over to Richfield Park which is also within the bounds of Genesee County and the Rangers however met the group at the park armed it's important you bring weapons to a drone fly and Shandling indicated the Rangers should let the enthusiasts know that it was a criminal misdemeanor to fly in the parks they could confiscate the equipment of anyone found in violation these actions taken as a whole prompted Harrison and the Michigan coalition of drone operators to file suit against the Genesee County Park Commission and the various people involved to ask for declaratory and injunctive relief claiming the Genesee County Park rule is preempted by Michigan law the court will now analyze this so I've spoken before about how you can have local laws you can have municipality laws County laws state laws and federal laws oftentimes these laws are parallel oftentimes they overlap sometimes there are laws passed that violate more important laws and those lower laws become unenforceable especially the court rules on so for instance if somebody passed a law and they outlawed public speech in a park like that well first amendment obviously would overrule that so Harrison is seeking injunctive relief the court must consider the four factors articulated and they talked about the fact that you know if you go to court and file a lawsuit if you're looking for something like damages you want the other side to pay you money the court will go the whole process of a trial and so on if necessary but injunctive relief is where you're asking the court to rule on something and and and then either forbid somebody from doing something or force them to do it and you can ask for preliminary injunctive relief we basically say look you know we're gonna prevail on this anyway why wait and so they talked about some of the standards involved there but we don't really need to get into that what we have to look at instead is whether Harrison is likely to prevail on the merits of the case and that involves statutory analysis the court therefore focused exclusively and in-depth on that factor of the merits there is a state law michigan compiled laws these blue books behind me mcl 259 305 starts the analysis which talks about except as expressly authorized by statute a political subdivision shall not enact or enforce an ordinance or resolution that regulates the ownership or operation of unmanned aircraft or otherwise engaged in a regulation of the ownership or operation of unmanned aircraft so this is something that the state is reserving for itself and then later it says subject to another subsection a political subdivision that prohibits by ordinance regulation resolution the operation of non-emergency motor vehicles in the political owned may enact an enforcement ordinance regulation or resolution that is necessary and proper to prohibit the knowing and intentional operation of an unmanned aircraft in a manner that interferes with a safe use of a horse and commercial activity including horse-drawn carriages wagons or carts and so on and so it's got a bunch of other stuff in here but obviously some of this is outdated some of it's not but there's a section that does matter three this act does not prohibit a political subdivision from promulgating rules regulations and ordinances use of unmanned aircraft systems by the political subdivision within the boundaries of the political subdivision so in other words if the county wants to set up rules for how its own employees run drones they're allowed to do that so the court writes the analysis transcends this statute the county points to MCL 46.3 six two and forty six three six four which provides counties with the authority to promulgate rules and regulations for lands they own and then it goes on and on but one of the things the court highlights is it says rules shall not be contrary to or inconsistent with the laws of the state and elsewhere they must be in a manner consistent with federal law for the operation of a model aircraft with these statutes as a guide the court now turns to the statutory interpretation questions the responses to these questions frame whether Harrison can establish the elements necessary for the courts to grant the injunctive relief he seeks so if state law prohibits a political subdivision from barring the operation of drones in a County Park then precisely what does the section allow a political subdivision do to do pertaining to drones in their parks and it goes on and on all very very complicated discussion which I'm not going to get into but it hinges on the language I had earlier where I said the Act does not prohibit a political subdivision from making rules regarding the use of unmanned aircraft systems by the political subdivision so in other words they are allowed to regulate how they use drones they can't regulate how other people use drones so the question of course says was that really the intent of the statute probably because they knew darn well then if they regulated the use of an airspace the FAA might be upset by that but the state of Michigan had also already said that they couldn't do that so a couple other things they talked about here the Court acknowledges that there's no authoritative case law that discusses the regulation of drone operation as much the court employs the same reasoning as the court in a couple other cases regarding what the term operation means even so doing the court has made a determination the county can only promulgate rules regulations and ordinance as it pertains to his own use of drones which extends the narrower operation that the county seeks to have the court adopt either way the result is the same the county cannot regulate the operation of drones unless the regulation is tailored to regulate its own employees or is precisely consistent with state and federal law so it was kind of strange that they took the position they did but it was quite clear that the law was written in such a way as to not allow counties and municipalities to draft their own rules regulating how other people operate drones in the airspace that is in essence aerospace in Michigan or federal airspace so the conclusion here is for the reasons for going as Court prohibits the enforcement of any ban on possession use or operation of drones on Robert Harrison or other members of the public by the Genesee County Parks Commission and any of its agents representatives Rangers members officers directors and employees that is inconsistent with the dictates of state and federal law and by the way they put a footnote here as well maybe not as ardently disputed the county's requirement for payment of fees for drone flying and for application for permits can only stand if tolerated by state and federal expression on these issues so the implication is that those are also struck down so it's kind of weird but and again I'm gonna have to summarize quite a bit if I if I read you the whole 11 page opinion nobody beat her now except me talking to myself but the state of Michigan has specifically said you can't restrict drone flights at the local levels except if you want to regulate yourselves like if the county owns a drone you can have rules for that if the city owns a drone they can have a rule for how their own guy runs their drone but this is going to be left to the states at least in Michigan it's gonna be left to the state's own lawmakers and other states probably have the similar concepts I will admit I've not checked into other states yet this is the cutting edge of the law right now because drones are relatively new not so much in the fact that we've had drones for years but drones have now gotten to be rather common and extremely affordable so that 20 years ago drone technology may have existed ten years ago it existed but it was not something that anybody could get nowadays you can get a drone as a stocking stuffer at Christmas so drones are common and so whether or not they need to be regulated another question but the point simply is this at the state of Michigan passed a law that says you can't regulate it at the lower level we're going to take care of that and when Genesee County passed a rule saying hey I'm gonna fly a drone in our Park you got to pay for a permit and follow our rules and first they tried to enforce the archaic law regarding hot-air balloons and and aeroplanes and and then they updated the law after the guy was arrested now admittedly they weren't trying to charge the guy with the later walk that's obviously wrong but but they did release the guy but then they passed a new rule so when the people want to do the fly in as a test of that and they got in a brouhaha over it it gave them good standing to file this lawsuit so judge Joseph Farah in the circuit court of the county of Genesee in Michigan which is seated in flint ruled on this just yesterday well so this is brand-new stuff here my friends and this is like I said the latest now things can change this is one of those fields going to evolve very quickly the state might pass new rules and of course whatever state you're in might pass their own rules but that's the current state of the law in Michigan so it looks like if you are in Michigan you want to fly a drone check out the state laws but don't worry so much about the little local rules where they say you got to buy a permit from us before you can fly a drone over say a County Park there you go thanks for he sent it to me several people did questions comes put them below in the sector bye-bye thank you for watching Latos law experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes you

Channel: Steve Lehto

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Keywords: lemon law, lemon law attorney, lemon law lawyer, http://www.lehtoslaw.com, steve lehto, drone, drone law, drone laws

Id: kF9yil5te5E

Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 12 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/joshman160]

Did any other state pass the same law as Michigan? I know in Ohio, I have seen a few county parks pull the same stunt. I just don’t know if Ohio has a higher law saying counties can’t do that.