Novi Police Retaliated Against Former Officer For Failing to Meet Ticket Quotas, Attorney Says

Former Novi police officer Michael Corbett filed a lawsuit this week against the City of Novi and members of the Novi police department claiming that he was being removed from the department for failing to meet a ticket quota.

Ticket quotas, when officers write a predetermined number of tickets, have been illegal in Michigan since 2010, said Deborah L. Gordon, the Bloomfield Hills attorney representing Corbett.

Gordon said Novi police told Corbett, "If you don’t do what we're telling you, we'll find a way to make your life miserable."

Novi police kept categories of the kind of tickets officers wrote, she said. For example, if an officer wrote a ticket for a broken tail light, that didn't count toward the quota, she said.

"They wanted the highest level ticket that generated the most money," she said.

The officers were justified in stopping citizens, she said, but were often choosing to give tickets instead of warnings.

"He didn't sign up to be a revenue collector and to harass motorists needlessly," she said about Corbett. 

Attorney says allegations extend to City of Novi

The lawsuit includes Novi Police Chief David Molloy, Assistant Police Chief Victor Lauria and the City of Novi, she said.

Gordon said the City of Novi is included because it runs the police force. Corbett wrote a letter in February to City Manager Clay Pearson outlining his allegations against the police department, she said.

"Approximately one month later, my client, who had a perfect record in a 25 year history, was asked to appear in a disciplinary interview," she said.

They pulled 84 files for his disciplinary conference but she has not yet seen what they found, she said. Corbett tried to retire from the police department on Monday, but the department is trying to stop him from getting benefits, she said.

Gordon said she has not yet been contacted by Novi police or the City of Novi, which have a certain number of days to respond to the complaint. 

Novi Assistant Police Chief Jerrod Hart said in a message to Patch that the department has not been served a copy of the lawsuit.  

"The allegations, which were made, we were made aware of by local media, and are clearly not consistent with our practices nor the professionalism of the Novi police department," he said.

The next step is to hear back from Novi police and the City of Novi to move into litigation, Gordon said.