COA 370340 MANITOU WATERS ASSOCIATION V JEFFREY A GANDEE Opinion - Per Curiam - Unpublished 4/27/2026

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.
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S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N
C O U R T O F A P P E A L S
MANITOU WATERS ASSOCIATION,
Plaintiff/Counterdefendant-Appellee,
UNPUBLISHED
April 27, 2026
1:44 PM
v No. 370340
Hillsdale Circuit Court
JEFFREY A. GANDEE and TINA GANDEE, LC No. 2020-000708-CH
Defendants/Counterplaintiffs,
and
JON GANDEE, NANCY GANDEE, WILLIAM
FARRAND, and AURORE FARRAND, also known
as AURORE MCFARRAND,
Defendants,
and
CRAIG PHILLIPS and TAMARA CADOO, also
known as TAMARA PHILLIPS,
Defendants/Counterplaintiffs-
Appellants.
Before: O’BRIEN, P.J., and FEENEY and WALLACE, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Defendants/counterplaintiffs-appellants, Craig Phillips and Tamara Cadoo, also known as
Tamara Phillips (defendants), appeal as of right the trial court’s March 13, 2024 nunc pro tunc
order, which supplied certain terms for the court’s earlier April 18, 2022 ruling that the court had
previously explained on the record but that were not explicitly included in the April 2022 order.
We dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

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I. BACKGROUND
Plaintiff/counterdefendant-appellee, Manitou Waters Association (plaintiff), is a
homeowners’ association, and pursuant to an agreement recorded with the Hillsdale County
Register, all of plaintiff’s members “may traverse the common grounds shown on the survey of
Manitou Waters,” and “[n]o parcel owner shall block or in anywise make it more difficult for
association members or their guests to use the common grounds.” Defendants own property
subject to this recorded agreement. On defendants’ property is a dike and hiking trail that are
classified as common grounds.
Plaintiff brought this action after defendants interfered with plaintiff’s members’ use of the
common grounds on defendants’ property. The action sought quiet title to the members’ easements
over the common grounds on defendants’ property; a declaratory judgment confirming that
plaintiff was a valid association and affirming the terms and effect of the recorded agreement; and,
as particularly relevant to this appeal, injunctive relief enjoining defendants from further violating
the recorded agreement or plaintiff’s bylaws. Defendants brought a variety of counterclaims in
response.
Plaintiff filed a motion for summary disposition asking the trial court to grant all of the
relief requested in plaintiff’s complaint and deny defendants’ counterclaims. With respect to
plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief, the motion asked the court to:
Enter judgment for [plaintiff] enjoining Defendants, Jeffrey A. Gandee, Rina
Gandee, Craig Phillips and Tamara Cadoo from violating the terms of the Manitou
Waters Agreement or the Bylaws of the Manitou Waters Association, or from
interfering with the lawful use of the various trails, parks or private roads by
members of the Manitou Waters Association or their guests.
At a February 11, 2022 hearing, the trial court granted plaintiff’s motion for summary
disposition in full and dismissed defendants’ counterclaims. With respect to plaintiff’s request for
injunctive relief, the court stated, “There is also a request by the Plaintiff for injunctive relief
seeking that no further action may be taken by the Defendants on this property having to do with
the dikes or preventing access, and I will grant that as well.”
Plaintiff submitted a proposed order to effectuate the trial court’s ruling, but defendants
objected, claiming that the order was not consistent with the court’s rulings. Defendants asserted
in relevant part:
G. That the Court order should reflect only what the Court actually ordered
on the record which is as follows:
* * *
6. Plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief is granted.
i. “There is also a request by the Plaintiff for injunctive relief seeking that
no further action may be taken by the Defendants on this property having to do with
the dikes or preventing access, and I will grant that as well.”

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At an April 18, 2022 hearing on the matter, the trial court refused to sign plaintiff’s
proposed order because the court believed that the order included more than what the court stated
on the record, and the court was “not comfortable signing that.” Defendants asked the court to
enter their proposed order which let the record “speak for itself,” and the court agreed to sign an
order submitted by defendants that, according to the court, would “reflect[]” the court’s rulings
and “leave[] to the transcript anything else that would need to be found.”
The order that the court signed provided in relevant part as follows:
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that for the reasons stated on the record,
Plaintiff/Counter[d]efendants’ Motion for Summary Disposition is granted and
Defendants/Cross-Plaintiffs’ [sic] Counter-Claims are dismissed.
Following this April 18, 2022 order, this litigation sat dormant until January 18, 2024,
when plaintiff moved to show cause defendants for interfering with plaintiff’s members’ use of
the common grounds in violation of the trial court’s injunction. Defendants responded that the
April 18, 2022 order did not enjoin them because the trial court only granted plaintiff injunctive
relief on the record, not in the language of the order itself. The court agreed that its earlier verbal
order needed to be memorialized, and on March 13, 2024, it entered a nunc pro tunc order that
included the language for the injunction that the court’s previous order omitted. The March 2024
order merely incorporated what the trial court had stated on the record at the February 11, 2022
hearing, so, with respect to plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief, the order stated:
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED:
Plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief is granted that no further action may
be taken by Defendants on this property having to do with the dikes or preventing
access.
Defendants moved for relief from the nunc pro tunc order, but the trial court denied
defendants’ motion following a hearing. Defendants now appeal the nunc pro tunc order as of
right, and the trial court stayed the contempt proceedings against defendants while this appeal is
pending.
II. JURISDICTION
Before we consider the merits of defendants’ arguments, we must determine if we have
jurisdiction over this claim of appeal. “The question of jurisdiction is always within the scope of
this Court’s review,” and it is incumbent upon this Court to address it, even if the parties
themselves “do not dispute jurisdiction.” Walsh v Taylor, 263 Mich App 618, 621-622; 689 NW2d
506 (2004).
Plaintiff previously moved to dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction, arguing that
defendants’ appeal was untimely because the March 13, 2024 order that defendants appealed
related back to the April 18, 2022 order, so the time for filing this appeal, according to plaintiff,

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ran from the April 18, 2022. If plaintiff was correct, then defendants’ claim of appeal filed in April
2024 was untimely under MCR 7.204(A). This Court rejected plaintiff’s argument in an order.1
We are not concerned about the timeliness of defendants’ appeal, however. Defendants
filed this appeal as an appeal as of right. MCR 7.203(A)(1) provides that this Court has
“jurisdiction of an appeal as of right filed by an aggrieved party from” a final order as defined in
MCR 7.202(6). Defendants claim that the March 13, 2024 nunc pro tunc order constitutes a final
order under MCR 7.202(6)(a)(i). That subrule states that a “final order” includes “the first
judgment or order that disposes of all the claims and adjudicates the rights and liabilities of all the
parties . . . .” MCR 7.202(6)(a)(i).
The March 13, 2024 nunc pro tunc order was clearly not the first order that disposed of all
claims and adjudicated the rights and liabilities of all the parties—that was the April 18, 2022
order. That order resolved all of plaintiff’s claims against defendants, all of defendants’
counterclaims against plaintiff, and adjudicated all the rights and liabilities of both parties.
The nunc pro tunc order, in contrast, disposed of no claims and did not adjudicate any
rights or liabilities. The “function” of a nunc pro tunc order is to cure a previous order that omitted
action taken by the court but not reflected in the prior order. Sleboede v Sleboede, 384 Mich 555,
558-559; 184 NW2d 923 (1971). A nunc pro tunc order cannot “change or alter” the previous
order, nor can it be used to “supply” action not previously taken by the court. Id. at 559 (quotation
marks and citation omitted). The March 2024 nunc pro tunc order merely supplied action
previously taken by the trial court but not reflected in the April 2022 order, namely stating the
terms of the injunction that the court granted to plaintiff. The order thus did not dispose of any
claim or adjudicate any rights or liabilities not already reflected in the April 2022 order.2
Defendants cannot seriously dispute this conclusion. Plaintiff’s motion for summary
disposition asked the trial court to dismiss all of defendants’ counterclaims and to grant plaintiff’s
motion for summary disposition, including plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief. Plaintiff’s
explicit request for injunctive relief asked for this relief against every named defendant, including
“Craig Phillips and Tamara Cadoo.” In the trial court’s April 2022 order, it stated that it was
granting plaintiff’s motion for summary disposition without exception and dismissing all of
defendants’ counterclaims. Following this order, there were no claims outstanding, nor any rights
or liabilities left unadjudicated.
While the April 2022 order did not specify the terms of the injunction, defendants clearly
knew what those terms were—defendants identified the terms of the injunction in their objection
1 Manitou Waters Ass’n v Gandee, unpublished order of the Court of Appeals, entered June 17,
2024 (Docket No. 370340).
2 We offer no opinion on whether a nunc pro tunc order is appealable as of right if it is the first
order that denies a claim or adjudicates rights or liabilities not previously reflected in a prior order,
e.g., if a trial court resolves a claim on the record but that resolution is not reflected in a subsequent
order, and the first time that the claim is ruled upon in an order is in a later-entered nunc pro tunc
order.

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to plaintiff’s proposed judgment, right after acknowledging that the trial court had granted
plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief. It was also not apparent when the trial court entered the
April 2022 order that the terms of the injunction needed to be spelled out in the order. Defendants
asked the court to enter an order that let the record “speak for itself,” and the court signed an order
that, in the court’s words, “reflect[ed]” the court’s rulings and left “to the transcript anything else
that would need to be found.”3 When it later became a problem that the injunction’s terms were
not explicitly stated in the April 2022 order, the trial court issued the March 2024 nunc pro tunc
order to supply the terms previously stated on the record but omitted from the court’s order.
It is thus clear that the March 2024 order did not dispose of any claim or adjudicate any
rights or liabilities of the parties not already disposed of or adjudicated by the April 2022 order. It
therefore cannot be said that the March 2024 was “the first judgment or order that disposes of all
the claims and adjudicates the rights and liabilities of all the parties,” so it was not a “final order”
within the meaning of MCR 7.206(a)(i). This Court accordingly lacks jurisdiction over
defendants’ appeal as of right under MCR 7.203(A)(1).
If defendants wanted to challenge, in a direct appeal as of right, the injunctive relief that
the trial court granted plaintiff, the time for doing so was when the trial court granted plaintiff’s
request for injunctive relief in April 2022. Defendants could not wait nearly two years, possibly
violate the injunction entered against them, then try to challenge the validity of the injunction
during the ensuing contempt proceedings, even if the injunction itself was improper in some way.4
See Reed v Soltys, 106 Mich App 341, 350; 308 NW2d 201 (1981).
3 At oral argument, defendants’ counsel made an array of arguments about the April 18, 2022
order, including both that the order did not grant injunctive relief and that it granted injunctive
relief against only Jeffrey Gandee and Rina Gandee. None of the arguments that defendants’
counsel made are plausibly inferable from the record, however, given that (1) plaintiff’s motion
for summary disposition explicitly asked for injunctive relief, (2) plaintiff’s request for injunctive
relief specifically asked for that relief against “Craig Phillips and Tamara Cadoo,” (3) the trial
court recognized on the record that there was “a request by the Plaintiff for injunctive relief,” and
the court stated that it was “grant[ing] that,” (4) when defendants’ counsel filed an objection to
plaintiff’s proposed order, he argued that “the Court order should reflect only what the Court
actually ordered on the record,” which included that “Plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief is
granted” (emphasis omitted), and (5) when it came time for the trial court to enter an order
reflecting its rulings, defendants’ counsel asked that the court let the record “speak for itself,” and
the court agreed, entering a generic order stating, without any exception, that plaintiff’s motion for
summary disposition (which, again, requested injunctive relief against “Craig Phillips and Tamara
Cadoo”) was granted “for the reasons stated on the record.” On this record, the only plausible
conclusion is that the trial court granted—and that defendants’ counsel understood the trial court
to be granting—plaintiff’s request for injunctive relief against Craig Phillips and Tamara Cadoo,
also known as Tamara Phillips.
4 It bears reiterating how this case came to this panel. In January 2024, plaintiffs filed a show
cause order claiming that defendants violated the injunction entered against them in April 2022,

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While we are dismissing this appeal for want of jurisdiction, we clarify that defendants are
not without an avenue to challenge the injunction entered against them. If defendants believe that
circumstances have changed that warrant modification of the injunction, or that the injunction
should otherwise be modified, they can move to modify the injunction in the trial court. See Opal
Lake Ass’n v Michaywe’ Ltd Partnership, 47 Mich App 354, 367; 209 NW2d 478 (1973) (“[A]n
injunction is always subject to modification or dissolution if the facts merit it.”); Michigan
AFSCME Council 25 v Woodhaven-Brownstown Sch Dist, 293 Mich App 143, 146; 809 NW2d
444 (2011) (same); City of Troy v Holcomb, 362 Mich 163, 169-170; 106 NW2d 762 (1961).
Nothing in this opinion should be construed to deny a request from defendants to modify the
injunction on grounds that the injunction is overbroad, vague, or otherwise violative of public
policy, as defendants argue on appeal.5
Dismissed.
/s/ Colleen A. O’Brien
/s/ Kathleen A. Feeney
/s/ Randy J. Wallace
which led to the trial court clarifying the terms of the April 2022 injunction in a March 2024 order.
That March 2024 order is the one at issue on appeal, and it simply specifies the terms of a
previously entered injunction. To be clear, defendants have not been found in contempt, and the
contempt proceedings against defendants have been stayed while this appeal is pending. Given
this posture, we do not believe it proper to opine on the propriety of the contempt proceedings
against defendants, nor to give an opinion about how the trial court should resolve those
proceedings, if for no other reason than because the result of those proceedings may be the subject
of a future appeal. We nevertheless note that, because the contempt proceedings against
defendants have been stayed, defendants have not been found to have violated the injunction nor
punished for doing so, making their ex-post-facto argument unripe. See Van Buren Charter Twp
v Visteon Corp, 319 Mich App 538, 554; 904 NW2d 192 (2017). Defendants remain free to raise
their ex-post-facto argument if (or when) the contempt proceedings against them resume.
5 We note that, in the trial court, plaintiff argued—and the trial court agreed—that any error in the
April 2022 order was defendants’ doing, i.e., that defendants “invited the error.” The April 2022
order was not a stipulated order intended to reflect an agreement by the parties; the order was
intended to reflect the trial court’s judgment. For that reason, any error in the order belongs to the
trial court alone. While defendants submitted the April 2022 order that the court entered, the court
itself had a responsibility to ensure that the order was proper and accurate. This is reflected in our
court rules, which provide that a court can only issue an order submitted by a party “if, in the
court’s determination, [the order] comports with the court’s decision.” MCR 2.602(B)(2) and
(3)(a). A court cannot outsource its responsibility to ensure that its orders are proper and accurate.
If defendants move to modify or dissolve the injunction against them, relief cannot be precluded
on grounds that defendants “invited” any error in the order granting the injunction.

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