KHALED ZAKHARIA V MICHIGAN MONTESSORI INTERNATIONALE INC

Court of Appeals, State of Michigan
ORDER
KHALED ZAKHARIA V MICHIGAN MONTESSORI
INTERNATIONALE INC
Docket No. 369047; 372364
LC No. 2023-000013-CK; 2023-000863-CZ
Brock A. Swartzle
Presiding Judge
Matthew S. Ackerman
Christopher M. Trebilcock
Judges
The motion for leave to exceed the word limit is GRANTED.
The motion for reconsideration is DENIED.
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Presiding Judge
Ackerman, J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part): There is a Yiddish phrase, genug iz
genug, meaning “enough is enough.” That sentiment applies here.
The introduction to our opinion should have made clear that additional words are unwarranted:
“When a party comes to us with nine grounds for reversing the [trial] court, that
usually means there are none.” Fifth Third Mtg Co v Chicago Title Ins Co, 692 F3d 507,
509 (CA 6, 2012). In over 160 pages of briefing, plaintiffs Khaled and Maral Zakharia
offer nearly twice that. In this dispute with the private school that expelled their children
because of Khaled’s conduct, we affirm the trial court’s grant of summary disposition to
defendants but reverse its award of sanctions.
Despite that framing, plaintiffs now seek leave to file a motion nearly three times the applicable word
limit. Very little of it is necessary; indeed, granting the motion is arguably counterproductive to plaintiffs’
own interests.
Consider first the lack of necessity. By way of example, plaintiffs devote 230 words to disputing
whether a witness meant that Khaled was observing “the children” generally or merely his own child on
the playground during recess. That is not the kind of distinction that justifies an exception to our rules.

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Granting the motion also arguably hurts plaintiffs. They waste precious space objecting to a
remark in our opinion that they filed their amended complaint on October 31 when it was stamped received
by the trial court on October 26. Such picayune distinctions, of course, do not satisfy the standard in MCR
2.119(F)(3) (incorporated into our Court’s practice by MCR 7.215(I)(1)) of a “palpable error by which
the court and the parties have been misled.” Moreover, granting the motion facilitates plaintiffs’
accusation that we “merely copied Appellees’ argument”—an accusation they would have been better off
being prevented from making, particularly given that the electronic record filed with us by the trial court
does, in fact, date the document October 31.
The irony is that in some ways I sympathize with plaintiffs’ position. Many reasonable people
were upset about masking during COVID, and disputes continue about the developmental consequences
(both cognitive and social) it had on children. I also have little doubt that many reasonable people would
find defendants’ approach to conflict resolution among students irksome. Plaintiffs’ frustrations are not
entirely illegitimate.
But rather than vote with their feet and take their business to another school, plaintiffs knowingly
defied clear directives from defendants because, in the words of Khaled’s deposition testimony,
compliance “would have been too humiliating to do, and I chose not to do it.” Eventually defendants
reached the end of what they would tolerate. Plaintiffs’ meritless claims have now been carefully
scrutinized by the courts and rejected. Unable to accept that outcome, they seek still more space to air
trifling objections to our effort at processing what I calculate to be 173 pages of briefing and 1,021 pages
of appendices previously filed with this Court.
Genug iz genug.
I would deny leave to file a motion in excess of the word limit. Because the majority has accepted
the fiing, however, I concur in the denial of the motion for reconsideration.

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