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Summary
- Michigan Court of Appeals reversed summary disposition for landlord
- Tenant alleges injuries from fall on stairs missing a handrail
- Court said jury must decide breach of duty and causation
- Open-and-obvious doctrine no longer bars duty under Michigan law
A landlord was not entitled to summary disposition in a premises liability suit brought by a tenant who was injured after falling down a set of exterior stairs missing a handrail, the Michigan Court of Appeals has decided.
The court said that factual questions remained about whether the landlord had breached a duty it owed to the tenant as an invitee.
“A jury must decide whether a defendant’s conduct fell below the general standard of care … so the trial court erred by deciding that summary disposition was warranted based upon the analysis of duty,” the court wrote in a per curiam opinion.
The panel also said that the trial court had incorrectly relied on outdated analysis of the application of the open-and-obvious defense.
Understanding premises liability law
Lansing attorney Steven A. Hicks represented the plaintiff and Saginaw attorney Kailen C. Piper represented the defendant. Neither could be reached for comment before deadline.
But Lansing attorney Bryan J. Waldman of Sinas Dramis said the trial court decision was incorrect for two reasons.
First, “the trial court applied the open and obvious danger defense, even though the doctrine had previously been overruled in Kandil-Elsayed v. F & E Oil,” he said.
In addition, Waldman added, “the trial court made a factual determination that the defendant didn’t breach its duty of care, even though there was a clear question of fact that should be decided by a jury.”
Missing handrail
The tenant rented a house in Flint with exterior porch stairs and a handrail on each side. Sometime before February 2021, one of the railings rusted and fell off. The tenant allegedly advised the landlord of this and followed up with a text in January 2022 stating that it hadn’t been fixed yet.
The landlord told the tenant it was being worked on, although the tenant claimed that the remaining railing had also rusted and was unsafe.
On Jan. 12, 2022, the tenant left for work and fell to her right while stepping onto the porch — the side with the missing handrail. At her deposition, the tenant said she didn’t know what caused her fall but stated she tried to grab the missing railing as it happened. She claimed that she lost consciousness because of the fall and suffered multiple injuries.
The tenant filed a premises liability claim. The landlord moved for summary disposition, asserting, among other things, that it owed no duty to the plaintiff because the porch was not a common area, the porch’s size did not require a handrail under the state residential code, and the tenant failed to show the lack of railing caused her fall.
A trial court judge granted summary disposition to the landlord, ruling that the tenant’s testimony was insufficient to create a question of fact. Further, the court ruled that there was no indication the railing might have prevented her fall since the tenant was unable to testify why she fell.
The court’s ruling relied on legal analysis in Ambs v. Family Counseling & Shelter Servs of Monroe Co Inc. In that 2010 unpublished decision, the COA affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the lack of a handrail on a staircase was an “open and obvious” danger, which limited the property owner’s duty to notify the tenant.
This appeal followed.
Breach of duty
The Court of Appeals found that as the tenant’s landlord, the defendant owed her a duty as an invitee, and a question of material fact remained about whether the defendant breached that duty.
Further, the tenant’s assertion of causation with regard to the breach of duty was also a question for the jury.
“Here, there remains a genuine issue of material fact because [the tenant] claims she would not have fallen, or at least not have fallen to the degree she did, if the handrail had been in place, so summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(10) was not warranted,” the opinion held.
The COA also stated that the trial court erred in relying on the legal analysis in Ambs because of the Michigan Supreme Court’s subsequent holding in Kandil-Elsayed v F&E Oil, Inc.
The panel said that since Kandil-Elsayed, whether a condition is open and obvious no longer negates a landowner’s duty, but instead is relevant to breach and comparative fault — issues that must be decided by a jury.
