Michigan barber wins reopen case at state Supreme Court

The Michigan state supreme court sided with a 77-year-old barber Friday night, ruling his shop could open despite prolonged shutdowns of wide swaths of the economy ordered by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitner.

In a unanimous ruling, the court overturned the decision of an appeals court that upheld a temporary restraining order the Whitmer administration had sought in what became a spotlighted case in an ongoing dispute in Michigan.

The decision also makes moot a motion by the state attorney general to hold Karl Manke, the barber, in contempt and be fined $5,000 a day for cutting hair while observing social distancing rules, according to Mr. Manke’s attorney.

“It is incumbent on the courts to ensure decisions are made according to the rule of law, not hysteria,” state justice David Viviano wrote in a concurring opinion. “One hopes that this great principle - essential to any free society, including ours - will not itself become yet another casualty of COVID-19.”

Mr. Manke’s decision to fight the shutdown rather than face what he said was near-certain economic ruin became something of a cause celebre among opponents of Ms. Whitmer’s strict stay-at-home rules. Her repeated extensions of the shutdown, currently scheduled to be lifted on June 12, also prompted an unsuccessful lawsuit from the Republican legislative majority and a major protest in Lansing last week dubbed ‘Operation Haircut.’

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