In what is being described as a “blistering decision,” the Michigan Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a lower trial court’s previous determination to keep in place a personal protection order filed against the son of a high-profile Michigan Democrat who had been attempting to rescind the order.

The PPO pertained to a minor identified in court documents as BD, but revealed to be the eldest son of Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum and Brad Delaney, a detective sergeant with the Ingham County Sheriff’s Office. Delaney, Byrum, Mason Public School District, Mason High School Principal Lance Delbridge, and Mason High School Assistant Principal Nicholas Toodzio were all named co-defendants in a case filed in federal court by Attorney Brandon Wolfe.

In a phone conversation with The Midwesterner, Wolfe called the result “a blistering decision” and “a huge win.” He noted that it “sets the tone for federal and state law cases” moving forward.

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Wolfe previously alleged in a suit filed in federal court that Byrum and Delaney attempted to use their respective political positions to circumvent a Mason Schools expulsion, Title IX complaint, and a personal protection order against their son.

Byrum released a statement in late May, calling the lawsuit “frivolous, false and utterly irresponsible. The salacious allegations against my integrity in this suit were designed to embarrass my family and were a blatant attempt to shake me down because I am a public figure.”

The PPO was issued after BD was allowed to return to Mason Public Schools one year after his expulsion for twice sexually molesting a female classmate identified only as EM.

According to the Court of Appeals decision, the “PPO prohibited BD from interfering with EM at school and from engaging in conduct that impaired her educational relationship and environment. Although no criminal charges were ever pursued, BD was expelled from school for a year after a Title IX investigation. The local school district subsequently allowed BD to return to the classroom, resulting in EM and BD attending the same high school. Despite the school district’s implementation of a safety plan that prohibited BD from making contact with EM, there were regular instances in which BD and EM saw each other in the high school’s hallways.”

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According to the Court of Appeals document shared with The Midwesterner, “There is no dispute by the parties that a determination was made that a Title IX violation occurred, that the school district expelled BD for the 2022-2023 school year given the Title IX violation, and that no criminal charges were pursued by an outside prosecutor’s office after the local county prosecutor recused his office because BD’s father was a local detective. Although the lower court record does not contain any supporting documentation, BD himself acknowledges in his brief on appeal that following the Title IX investigation, ‘[s]chool administrators concluded that, by a preponderance of the evidence, the allegations were proven[.]’”

As reported previously in The Midwesterner, prior to serving as Ingham County Clerk, Byrum was a Democratic member of the Michigan House of Representatives from Jan. 1, 2007 to Jan. 1, 2013, succeeding her mother, former House Minority Leader Dianne Byrum.

In 2022, Byrum and Delaney’s son – identified in court documents as B.D. – was in eighth grade when he was expelled from Mason Public Schools for violating school policy and state law for criminal sexual conduct.

Court documents note that BD on May 12, 2022, “Plaintiff E.M. was sitting in her English class at a table when B.D., who was attending the same class, pulled her chair closer to him and leaned forward as if he was going to tell her a secret but instead, forcefully put his hand inside E.M.’s sweatpants and underwear and digitally penetrated her vagina without consent.”

The court also affirmed that “there was reasonable cause to continue the PPO as long as BD insisted on attending the same high school as EM. The trial court reasoned that because of the extreme anxiety and migraines suffered by EM upon seeing BD, as supported by her testimony, BD’s mere presence at the high school constituted conduct impairing EM’s educational environment when the evidence demonstrated that she and BD regularly crossed paths.”

The documents detail a second event that occurred on May 16, 2022: “BD sat next to E.M. again on May 16, 2022, in a different classroom and once again pulled up a chair and tried to perform the same act, rubbing E.M.’s upper/inner thigh on the outside of her pants. E.M. abruptly got up and moved away without B.D. saying anything to her.”

B.D. was expelled, but according to the Jan. 2024 complaint filed against Byrum and Delaney: “Approximately 150 days after the suspension, B.D.’s parents petitioned — using their local political influence — the Mason Board of Education for reinstatement of B.D.”

Byrum and Delaney’s son was reinstated in school, which forced his eighth-grade victim to share classrooms, hallways, and extracurricular activities with him everyday.

Thursday’s Court of Appeals decision notes that BD alleged “his educational development was being restricted and cabined by EM’s holding the PPO over him.”

It continued: “Furthermore, BD’s adamant protestations regarding his own educational relationship or environment must be treated as secondary and give way to those held by the actual victim in the case, not the perpetrator. BD cannot legitimately complain about what he is missing out on as a high school student when it was his conduct that caused the PPO to be issued in the first place. We recognize that BD wants to put his inappropriate actions behind him and move on with his life, but we cannot lose sight of EM’s ongoing emotional struggles going forward.”

In response to BD’s claim he did not engage in any conduct with EM that would violate the PPO, the court found: “BD’s argument fails to give weight to the impact that seeing him at school had on EM. In fact, PPOs are generally designed to prohibit a respondent from appearing in a petitioner’s presence regardless of whether
the respondent engages in any particular conduct when in the petitioner’s view…. Furthermore, the affirmative act of BD attending the high school, in and of itself, constituted conduct. Accordingly, we reject BD’s argument.”

The document concludes: “The trial court did not err by extending or continuing the PPO in favor of EM in light of the fact that BD insisted on attending the same high school as EM. This ruling was supported by evidence that EM regularly observed BD at school and suffered severe anxiety and migraines upon seeing him given that he had previously sexually assaulted her, which she relived when she saw BD.

“We affirm. Having fully prevailed on appeal, EM may tax costs under MCR 7.219.”