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Michigan Supreme Court 

Lansing, Michigan 48909 

C hief Justice Justices 

Maura D. Corrigan	 Michael F. Cavanagh 

Elizabeth A. Weaver 

Marilyn Kelly 

Clifford W. Taylor Opinion Robert P. Young, Jr. 

Stephen J. Markman 

FILED SEPTEMBER 17, 2002
 

BETTY J. JONES,
 

Plaintiff-Appellee,
 

v	 No. 119578
 

ENERTEL, INC., a Michigan


corporation,
 

Defendant,
 

and
 

CITY OF SOUTH LYON, a municipal


corporation,
 

Defendant-Appellant
 

PER CURIAM
 

In this case, plaintiff alleged that she suffered
 

injuries as a result of the failure of defendant city of South
 

Lyon to fulfill its statutory duty under MCL 691.1402(1) to
 

maintain a sidewalk in reasonable repair. The circuit court
 

denied South Lyon’s motion for summary disposition, which was
 

premised on the position that it should not be held liable
 
because the condition of the sidewalk was open and obvious.
 

The Court of Appeals denied South Lyon’s interlocutory
 

application for leave to appeal that decision. We affirm the
 

circuit court’s denial of the motion for summary disposition
 

because the open and obvious doctrine of common-law premises
 

liability is inapplicable to a claim that a municipality
 

violated its statutory duty to maintain a sidewalk on a public
 

highway in reasonable repair.
 

I
 

Plaintiff alleges that she fell on a sidewalk located
 

along a road in South Lyon “due to the hazardous nature of
 

said sidewalk, including broken cement [and] differences in
 

height between the cement slabs” and that she suffered a
 

fracture of her right arm and other injuries as a result. She
 

further asserts that South Lyon failed to properly maintain
 

the sidewalk. 


South Lyon moved for summary disposition pursuant to MCR
 

2.116(C)(10) on the ground that it was not liable because the
 

condition of the sidewalk was open and obvious. The circuit
 

court denied that motion, ruling that it was bound to follow
 

the holding in Haas v Ionia, 214 Mich App 361; 543 NW2d 21
 

(1995), that the open and obvious doctrine cannot bar an
 

action for violation of a municipality’s statutory obligation
 

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under MCL 691.1402(1) to keep a sidewalk in reasonable repair.
 

Thereafter, South Lyon filed an interlocutory application for
 

leave to appeal the denial of its motion for summary
 

disposition with the Court of Appeals, which denied the
 

application.
 

II
 

We review the resolution of a summary disposition motion
 

de novo. Roberts v Mecosta Co General Hosp, 466 Mich 57, 62;
 

642 NW2d 663 (2002).
 

III
 

MCL 691.1402(1), part of the governmental tort liability
 

act (GTLA), imposes a general duty on municipalities to keep
 

“a highway,” including a sidewalk on the highway1, under its
 

jurisdiction in reasonable repair:
 

Except as otherwise provided in section 2a[2]
 

each governmental agency having jurisdiction over a


highway shall maintain the highway in reasonable
 

repair so that it is reasonably safe and convenient


for public travel. A person who sustains bodily


injury or damage to his or her property by reason


of failure of a governmental agency to keep a
 

highway under its jurisdiction in reasonable repair


and in a condition reasonably safe and fit for


travel may recover the damages suffered by him or


her from the governmental agency. [Emphasis


added.]
 

1
 The applicable statutory definition of “highway”


includes “sidewalks . . . on the highway.” MCL 691.1401(e).
 

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The emphasized language places a duty on municipalities to
 

maintain their sidewalks on public highways in reasonable
 

repair. This means that municipalities have an obligation, if
 

necessary, to actively perform repair work to keep such
 

sidewalks in reasonable repair. This is a greater duty than
 

the duty a premises possessor owes to invitees under commonlaw premises liability principles. The basic duty owed to an
 

invitee by a premises possessor is “to exercise reasonable
 

care to protect the invitee from an unreasonable risk of harm
 

caused by a dangerous condition on the land.” Lugo v
 

Ameritech Corp, 464 Mich 512, 516; 629 NW2d 384 (2001).
 

Accordingly, as we discussed in Lugo, this duty does not
 

generally require a premises possessor to remove open and
 

obvious conditions because, absent special aspects, such
 

conditions are not unreasonably dangerous precisely because
 

they are open and obvious. However, such reasoning cannot be
 

applied to the statutory duty of a municipality to maintain
 

sidewalks on public highways because the statute requires the
 

sidewalks to be kept in “reasonable repair.” The statutory
 

language does not allow a municipality to forego such repairs
 

because the defective condition of a sidewalk is open and
 

obvious. Accordingly, we conclude that the open and obvious
 

doctrine of common-law premises liability cannot bar a claim
 

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against a municipality under MCL 691.1402(1).
 

Moreover, MCL 691.1403, in qualifying the general duty
 

imposed on municipalities to maintain highways, provides:
 

No governmental agency is liable for injuries


or damages caused by defective highways unless the


governmental agency knew, or in the exercise of


reasonable diligence should have known, of the


existence of the defect and had a reasonable time
 

to repair the defect before the injury took place.


Knowledge of the defect and time to repair the same


shall be conclusively presumed when the defect


existed so as to be readily apparent to an
 

ordinarily observant person for a period of 30 days


or longer before the injury took place.
 

This language contemplates that a city may, in appropriate
 

circumstances, be held liable for defects in a highway that
 

are “readily apparent to an ordinarily observant person”—or in
 

other words are open and obvious. Thus, MCL 691.1403 reflects
 

that the Legislature did not intend to allow a municipality to
 

invoke the open and obvious doctrine in this context.
 

Accordingly, MCL 691.1403 reinforces our conclusion that the
 

open and obvious doctrine is inapplicable to a claim that a
 

municipality has violated its duty to maintain a highway
 

(including a sidewalk on a highway).
 

IV
 

In arguing that it should be allowed to avail itself of
 

the open and obvious doctrine, South Lyon, in its application
 

for leave to appeal, cites MCL 691.1412, which provides:
 

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Claims under this act are subject to all of


the defenses available to claims sounding in tort


brought against private persons.
 

South Lyon argues that, because the open and obvious “defense”
 

is available to private parties, MCL 691.1412 requires that it
 

be allowed to advance that doctrine in this case. We
 

disagree. Assuming for purposes of discussion that MCL
 

691.1412 read in isolation would allow South Lyon to use the
 

open and obvious doctrine as a defense in the present case, we
 

conclude that MCL 691.1412 would have to yield to the more
 

specific statutory duty to maintain highways in reasonable
 

repair under MCL 691.1402(1). “[W]here a statute contains a
 

general provision and a specific provision, the specific
 

provision controls.” Gebhardt v O’Rourke, 444 Mich 535, 542­

543; 510 NW2d 900 (1994). As discussed in the previous
 

section, MCL 691.1402(1) imposes a duty on municipalities
 

specific to maintaining highways (including sidewalks on
 

highways) in reasonable repair. In contrast, MCL 691.1412
 

applies generally to all claims under the GTLA. Thus, the
 

specific provisions of MCL 691.1402(1) prevail over any
 

arguable inconsistency with the more general rule of MCL
 

691.1412.
 

V
 

For these reasons, we affirm the circuit court denial of
 

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the motion for summary disposition. 


CORRIGAN, C.J., and CAVANAGH, WEAVER, KELLY, TAYLOR, YOUNG, and
 

MARKMAN, JJ., concurred.
 

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