The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday denied businesses and students compensation for losses during the pandemic, refusing to hear appeals in several cases.

Justices on the state’s highest court issued brief orders dismissing three cases dealing with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s executive orders during the pandemic, and losses suffered by students and businesses as a result, WDET reports.

Two of the cases, involving a gym and restaurants that were forced to close for months, centered on whether lost revenues from the state’s emergency health orders constituted a “taking” of private property that must be compensated for under state and federal constitutions.

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“What we seem to have forgotten in Michigan is, you want to take it, you’ve got to pay us for it. You don’t get to just take it. You don’t get to take my business without compensating me. To me, it’s one of the most simple American rules of justice,” Albert Addis, attorney representing Macomb County restaurants, told the news site.

The Court of Claims found that while the Whitmer administration did impose a negative economic impact on the businesses that interfered with “reasonable investment-backed expectations,” that impact from the shutdown was “short lived.”

“The property clearly still had value, even if no revenue or profit was generated during the closure,” the state appeals court concurred in 2022, according to WDIV.  “And any lost value relative to the real and personal property was likely recovered as soon as the temporary prohibition was lifted.”

Justices did not issue a formal opinion on the cases, but rather voted 5-2 to dismiss them in two-sentence orders.

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Justices David Viviano and Richard Bernstein issued a dissent arguing that “by looking the other way on claims like these, we ‘damage the credibility of the judiciary to serve as a bulwark of our liberty and ensure that the government does not take private property without just compensation – even in times of crisis.”

Viviano and Bertein also dissented from another 5-2 decision on Friday to dismiss a Court of Claims case regarding in-person classes at several state universities during the pandemic.

The decision leaves in place a 2022 appeals court decision that found college students suing for refunds over remote instruction “failed to demonstrate that the defendant universities breached any contractual agreement with them,” WZZM reports.

“Plaintiffs do not argue that the universities failed to provide the classes for which they registered, but instead argue that once the pandemic began the universities did not provide the classes in the format for which the students registered,” Viviano wrote in dissent, suggesting the case should return to the Court of Claims.

Title IX coordinator Kate Bergel at Lake Superior State University, which was targeted in the lawsuit along with Central Michigan and Eastern Michigan universities, told WDET officials did their best to continue classes despite the governor’s pandemic orders.

“Lake State did what we had to do in order to still deliver the educational content that we promised,” she said. “It didn’t happen in person but we still did the best that we could under the rules that we’re required to follow by the state guidelines.”

Friday’s orders come nearly four years after the Michigan Supreme Court found Whitmer had no authority to issue or renew executive orders that limited public and private gatherings, closed and restricted businesses, and regulated other aspects of the daily lives of residents.

Whitmer’s pandemic edicts ultimately cost the state a quarter of its small- and mid-sized businesses, and 81,900 jobs, resulting in a state economy that’s taking far longer than others to recover.

Her decision to close schools to in-person instruction for nearly a year also cost students years of lost learning that researchers predict will take decades to recoup, while other orders cost the lives of as many as 14,000 Michigan seniors.

In May, Circuit Court Judge Colin Hunter found state statutes Michigan health officials relied on to restrict businesses and gatherings during the pandemic were also unconstitutional because they violated the state’s separation of powers between the legislative, judicial, and executive branches.

While it’s unclear how each of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits impacted by the Friday Supreme Court decisions will proceed, Addis told WDET he’s advising his clients to appeal the case involving restaurant owners to the U.S. Supreme Court.