Michigan

It depends

Michigan does not resolve to a single rule — the answer depends on the medium or on who is recording. Read the nuance and the statute before acting.

Michigan is commonly listed as all-party (two-party) consent. That is the label you will find on most reference lists, and it is close enough to be useful and wrong enough to matter. What the statute actually does is above.

The part that catches people out

Our reading, not verified text. Everything in this section is editorial judgment about how the statute works. Unlike the statute above, the reading itself has not been checked against a source. The decision named below has been checked against a court record and exists as cited — but what we say it holds is still our reading, not the court's words.

Start with the text: § 750.539c reaches 'any person who is present or who is not present' who eavesdrops on a private conversation 'without the consent of all parties'. On its face that covers a participant. Michigan courts have read 'eavesdrop' to mean a third party overhearing, so a participant recording their own conversation has been held outside it — but that reading comes from Sullivan v. Gray, a 1982 intermediate appellate decision the Michigan Supreme Court has never affirmed. Treat participant recording here as unresolved and risky, not as settled one-party.

Where this comes from

Federal floor

Federal law permits recording with one party's consent unless the recording is made to commit a crime or tort. Federal law is the FLOOR; a state may and many do require more. Where an interstate call touches two states with different rules, the safe assumption is the stricter one. See 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d).

Reference information, not legal advice. Statutes change and courts read them differently; confirm the current text with the linked primary source and counsel licensed in the jurisdiction before relying on it.

All jurisdictions · This page as JSON · How this is verified · Terms of reuse

Found an error, or a statute that has moved? Tell us — a citation with the correction gets it into the next revision.