SOUTH HAVEN, Mich. — The Michigan Supreme Court agreed on Friday to consider hearing arguments about whether The City of South Haven has governmental immunity in a wrongful death lawsuit against them.
Crystal LeDuke filed a wrongful death lawsuit against The City of South Haven in May 2024 after her 18-year-old son Brandon Chambers drowned while swimming at a city beach in 2020.
Since the initial filing, city officials have been trying to dismiss the lawsuit on grounds of governmental immunity — a law that renders government agencies immune from liability ” if the governmental agency is engaged in the exercise or discharge of a governmental function.”
The point of debate is whether the the city’s beach operations qualify as a “proprietary function,” or “business-type activity,” an exception to governmental immunity protections that would open up the city to liability in Chambers’ death.
In granting South Haven governmental immunity, the Michigan Court of Appeals concluded that the city’s beach operations do not quality as a proprietary function because they do not operate their beaches for profit, and rather, as a government function.
The city doesn’t disagree that the beaches generate profit, however, they maintain that those funds aren’t used for anything other than maintaining the beaches and do not fund any other “business-type activities” such as roads, parks or utilities.
On the other side of the argument, however, there are questions about the city’s financial records and whether money from their beach fund truly is only used for beach operations.
Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Hon. P.J. Patel issued a dissenting opinion when the court granted South Haven governmental immunity and cited testimony of the city’s finance director and assessor Michelle Argue’s as incomplete because she couldn’t fully explain the transactions of the beach fund account such as a $515,854 expense for “parks and beach.”
She was also unable to provide an answer to whether a $221,028 net revenue from the beach fund stayed in the account or if it was rolled into the city’s general fund, according to testimony transcripts provided by Patel in his dissent.
While the Michigan Supreme Court has not officially agreed to consider the appeal, on Friday they agreed to hear arguments from both sides about why the Michigan Court of Appeal’s decision to grant South Haven governmental immunity should or shouldn’t be reconsidered.
Arguments have not yet been scheduled, according to Michigan’s state court database.
LeDuke’s wrongful death lawsuit against the city is not the first since South Haven disbanded its lifeguard program in 2001.
Marty Jordan, 45, died in August 2009 during a mid-afternoon incident while rescuing his son, nieces and nephew at South Beach. A wrongful death lawsuit filed on his behalf in 2011 settled in 2013 with a requirement that South Haven provide callboxes, warning flags, signage and “other measures” to increase beach safety, resulting in the Marty Jordan South Haven City Beach Safety Program.
South Haven is also in the midst of a second ongoing wrongful death lawsuit against them for the 2022 drownings of 19-year-old Emily MacDonald and her boyfriend, 22-year-old Kory Ernster. In April 2025, a Van Buren County court denied the city’s request to dismiss based on governmental immunity, which the city later appealed.
Emily MacDonald and Kory Ernster before their passing on August 8, 2022. (Lisa MacDonald/WWMT){ }
The case is still pending in the Michigan Court of Appeals and oral arguments have not yet been scheduled, presumably waiting on the final decision for Chambers’ case as the arguments are similar and the Chambers decision could set a precedent, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyer.
Nine other people drowned while at South Haven beaches since 2001, according to a March 2025 beach safety report from the United States Lifesaving Association, making a total of 12 with CHambers, MacDonald and Ernster.
July 4, 2006: A 17-year-old boy who drowned in the evening.July 2010: Jordy Graves, 17, drowned at South Beach.June 2012: A three-year-old girl drowned at South Beach.July 2012: A former lifeguard Sean Russell swam the channel and drowned while rescuing three people near North Pier.July 7, 2019: A 13-year-old boy drowned at South Beach in the afternoon.June 16, 2020: Jazmyn Patterson, 19, drowned while rescuing her 4-year-old cousin at South Beach.July 12, 2020: Jaedon Odunuga-Evans, 20, drowned at North Beach in the late afternoon.July 14, 2021: Anthony Diehl, 33, drowned while trying to rescue 7-year-old Elijah Britt, who also drowned that day.
After years of back-and-forth on the topic, South Haven City Council agreed in November to restart the lifeguard program for the first time since 2001 and approved implementing the first phase of their feasibility study plan, which includes a funding strategy and the initial processes of finding qualified people to hire by Memorial Day weekend of 2026.
On Monday, South Haven’s new chief lifeguard, David Figueredo, officially stepped into the role following seven years as a lifeguard in Illinois.
