Michigan Court of Appeals Panel Reverses Decision for Defendant in “Open and Obvious” Case
Plaintiff, an independent contractor, filed a negligence action after he slipped and fell in Defendant’s parking lot injuring his ankle. Defendant Dealership successfully argued before the Trial Court that a person of ordinary intelligence would have appreciated the danger in the parking lot given the presence of snow and near freezing temperatures.
On appeal, the Michigan Court of Appeals in the unpublished case of Orlowski v. Gezon Motors Inc stated that the standard promulgated in Hoffner v. Lanctoe controlled. The Appellate Court considered the individual circumstances and whether the snow or ice condition was foreseeable to a reasonably prudent person. In doing so, the Appellate Court found that there were insufficient indicia of wintery conditions to conclude that the ice that Plaintiff slipped on was “open and obvious”.
The case was reversed and remanded to the Trial Court.
Click on the link to read the entire case: