If a person or business entity brings suit for breach of contract for a business purchase, the Michigan Consumer Protection Act (“MCPA”) is not available for use in the lawsuit. The intent of the MCPA is to protect consumers in their purchases of goods which are primarily used for personal, family, or household purposes. The purchase of an item primarily for business or commercial use does not come within this scope even if the same product is also used by consumers for their personal use. Some exceptions do apply but this is the general rule.
For example, in Zine v. Chrysler Corporation, 236 Mich. App. 261 (1999) an individual purchased a truck is used primarily for business but some consumer use as well. The Court held that you may not use the MCPA in a suit alleging the truck is defective. If eighty percent of the truck’s mileage is for business driving and a business deduction is taken for depreciation of the truck, then usage of the truck is primarily for business for purposes of the MCPA.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal appellate court, applied this rule when law school graduates alleged breach of the MCPA against a Michigan law school in MacDonald v. Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 724 F.3d 654 (2013). The appellate court found the MCPA was not available because the law school graduates attended the law school for the business purpose of bettering themselves for full-time employment in the legal sector, and not for consumer purposes
