Case Name: BURNETT v. CITY OF ADRIAN
Court: Michigan Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1982-11-23
Citations: 414 Mich. 448
Docket Number: Docket No. 63981
Parties: BURNETT v CITY OF ADRIAN
Judges: Fitzgerald, C.J., and Kavanagh and Coleman, JJ., concurred with Ryan, J.
Reporter: Michigan Reports
Volume: 414
Pages: 448–482

Head Matter:
BURNETT v CITY OF ADRIAN
Docket No. 63981.
Argued October 13, 1981
(Calendar No. 1).
Decided November 23, 1982.
Gloe-Etta Burnett, as administratrix of the estate of Christopher S. Burnett and for herself, and Bradford Burnett brought an action against the City of Adrian and other defendants for the wrongful death of Christopher Burnett, who drowned in Lake Adrian, an artificial lake used by the city as a reservoir for its water supply. The lake was created by flooding the area in 1941. Christopher Burnett, who was 14 years old and could not swim, waded out into the lake and stepped off the edge of a submerged structure 50 feet from shore. He was swept down to his death by an undertow around the structure. The plaintiffs alleged that the city knew that the structure was under the water and knew that the structure created a danger for persons who might swim there, but that the city failed to avert the danger by destroying the structure or posting warnings. The Lenawee Circuit Court, Kenneth B. Glaser, Jr., J., granted summary judgment for the defendant city on the ground that the plaintiffs had failed to state a cause of action under the recreational use statute, which limits the liability of a landowner for injuries to a person using the land for recreational purposes to those injuries caused by the "gross negligence or wilful and wanton misconduct” of the landowner. The Court of Appeals, M. F. Cavanagh, P.J., and R. M. Maher and Van Valkenburg, JJ., affirmed in an unpublished opinion per curiam (Docket No. 78-1692). The plaintiffs appeal.
In an opinion by Justice Ryan, joined by Chief Justice Fitzgerald and Justices Kavanagh and Coleman, the Supreme Court held:
The recreational use statute authorizes recovery in the cir cumstances of this case only if gross negligence or wilful and wanton misconduct is shown. No actionable claim for gross negligence is made out because there is no allegation of the defendant’s subsequent negligence. The plaintiffs alleged facts sufficient to state a claim of wilful and wanton misconduct under the recreational use statute. The count in attractive nuisance, to the extent that it is grounded in ordinary negligence, is barred by the express terms of the recreational use statute, and to the extent that it pleads wilful and wanton misconduct, is duplicative.
References for Points in Headnotes
[1] 61A Am Jur 2d, Pleading § 110.
[2-7] 57 Am Jur 2d, Negligence § 101 et seq.
62 Am Jur 2d, Premises Liability §§ 37, 75.
[5] 57 Am Jur 2d, Negligence § 151 et seq.
[6] 73 Am Jur 2d, Summary Judgment §§ 6, 26.
[7] 57 Am Jur 2d, Negligence §§ 108, 124.
62 Am Jur 2d, Premises Liability §§ 153,154.
1. This appeal, because of its interlocutory nature, is not an appropriate opportunity to attempt to reconcile the confused and disparate case law concerning gross negligence and wilful and wanton misconduct. The occasion for that effort will be a case upon an adequate factual record.
2. Until then, the Court should be bound by its last best effort to define gross negligence and wilful and wanton misconduct. The leading case is well-reasoned, but its three-element formula for determining wilful and wanton misconduct is poorly stated, being cast in language of ordinary negligence until, in the third element, it is said that it must be shown that an injury is "likely”. In that notion, that in the circumstances the injury is probable, or to be expected, or likely, is found the requisite indifference to harm tantamount to a willingness that it occur, that distinguishes wilful and wanton misconduct from ordinary negligence.
3. Under the case law, wilful and wanton misconduct is shown where there is an intent to harm or, in circumstances in which injury is probable, there is such indifference to whether harm will result as to be equivalent to a willingness that harm result, and the plaintiffs have pleaded facts essentially equivalent to a willingness that harm result.
Justice Moody, joined by Justices Williams and Levin, concurring, wrote that the plaintiffs alleged sufficient facts to state a claim of wilful and wanton misconduct under the recreational use statute. The count for gross negligence does not allege subsequent negligence of the defendant, and therefore summary judgment on that count was proper. The claim of attractive nuisance, to the extent that the facts alleged are grounded on the city’s negligent conduct, is barred by the express terms of the recreational use statute, and to the extent that it sets forth facts sufficient to support an allegation of wilful and wanton misconduct, is duplicative.
1. In the context of the recreational use statute, a plaintiff, to state a claim of wilful and wanton misconduct upon which relief can be granted, must allege: a) the defendant’s knowledge of a situation requiring the exercise of ordinary care and diligence to avert injury to another; b) his ability to avoid the resulting harm by ordinary care and diligence in the use of the means at hand; and c) the omission of the use of such care and diligence to avert the threatened danger when, to the ordinary mind, it must be apparent that the result is likely to prove disastrous to another.
2. Under the recreational use statute, a claim of wilful and wanton misconduct does not require an allegation of an affirmatively reckless act to survive a motion for summary judgment. In so requiring, the Court of Appeals relied on dicta in cases involving the common-law last clear chance doctrine and criticism of the three-part wilful and wanton misconduct test in circumstances which did not involve the recreational use statute. The test describes a degree of culpability which is higher than "mere” negligence; the requirement that the defendant recognize that failure to exercise ordinary care would have dire consequences describes the reckless behavior which distinguishes wilful and wanton misconduct from negligence. To require an affirmatively reckless act not only conflicts with precedent, but also introduces a new area of confusion in the law. A failure to act in the face of a duty may be just as reckless, wanton, and wilful as an affirmative act. In most cases, the court could find an affirmative act by viewing the facts from a different angle. For example, in this case the defendant’s misconduct could be seen as its failure to destroy the structure or failure to warn swimmers of the danger, or the misconduct could be seen as the affirmative act of flooding the land without removing the structure. The difference in approach should not determine the defendant’s liability. Use of the three-part test of wilful and wanton misconduct furthers the policy of the recreational use statute by adequately protecting landowners from liability for ordinary negligence, thereby encouraging them to keep their lands open for recreational use, but does not preclude recovery for injury caused by conduct which reflects a greater degree of culpability. The test strikes the proper balance, and defines the threshold burden a plaintiff must satisfy to state a cause of action under the recreational use statute.
3. Gross negligence should not be treated as being without an independent meaning in the recreational use statute. .At a minimum, gross negligence under the statute, as at common law, incorporates the doctrine of last clear chance. Because the complaint does not allege the subsequent negligence of the defendant, the summary judgment on the count for gross negligence was proper.
4. Applying the three elements of the test to the facts of this case, the plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to withstand the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. Their allegations support a finding that the city knew of the submerged structure because the structure appears on maps which were made before the flooding and it is now visible when the water level is low. From the existence of tire tracks to the water, a nearby parking area, and a footpath to the water, the defendant city knew or should have known that swimmers used the lake and were exposed to the danger created by the submerged structure. The plaintiffs allege that the defendant had the ability to avoid the harm by ordinary care and diligence in the use of the means at hand, either by removing the submerged structure or
■ by posting a warning of its existence. Finally, they allege that the submerged structure allowed the decedent, who could not swim, to go much farther out into the lake than he otherwise could have gone to the point where he suddenly encountered deep water with an unnatural current around the structure and drowned. Whether it is apparent that the alleged omissions in this case would likely prove disastrous to another person is an issue for the jury to determine. Many of the plaintiffs’ other contentions also involve issues of fact and conclusions upon which reasonable minds can differ. The plaintiffs should be allowed to present evidence to the jury in support of their allegations.
5. The recreational use statute clearly requires that, to determine liability, a court must look to the nature and blameworthiness of a defendant’s conduct. To the extent that the facts alleged in the plaintiffs’ attractive nuisance claim are grounded in the defendant’s negligent conduct, the claim is barred by the express terms of the statute. To the extent that the complaint sets forth facts sufficient to support an allegation of wilful and wanton misconduct, it is duplicative of the cause of action based solely on that conduct.
Reversed and remanded.
Opinion op the Court
1. Negligence — Gross Negligence — Subsequent Negligence — Pleading.
A claim for gross negligence is not made out by a pleading in which there is no allegation of the defendant’s subsequent negligence.
2. Negligence — Recreational Use — Wilful and Wanton Misconduct.
Allegations that the owner of a lake knew of a submerged structure which created a danger for swimmers and that the owner failed to destroy the structure or post warnings were sufficient to state a claim of wilful and wanton misconduct under the recreational use statute (MCL 300.201; MSA 13.1485).
3. Negligence — Wilful and Wanton Misconduct.
Wilful and wanton misconduct is' distinguished from ordinary negligence by an intent to harm or by an indifference of a defendant in the presence of the probability of harm which is tantamount to a willingness that the harm occur.
Concurring Opinion by Blair Moody, Jr., J.
4. Negligence — Recreational Use — Wilful and Wanton Misconduct.
The elements of wilful and wanton misconduct, under the statute which limits the liability of a landowner for injuries to a person using the defendant’s land for recreational purposes, are 1) knowledge of a situation requiring the exercise of ordinary care and diligence to avert injury to another, 2) ability to avoid the resulting harm by ordinary care and diligence in the use of the means at hand, and 3) the omission to use such care and diligence to avert the threatened danger when to the ordinary mind it must be apparent that the result is likely to prove disastrous to another (MCL 300.201; MSA 13.1485).
5. Negligence — Recreational Use —• Statutes — Wilful and Wanton Misconduct — Public Policy.
The policy of the statute which limits the liability of a landowner for injuries to a person using the land for recreational purposes is to protect landowners from liability for ordinary negligence, thereby encouraging them to keep their lands open for recreational use, without precluding recovery for an injury caused by conduct which reñects a greater degree of culpability than ordinary negligence (MCL 300.201; MSA 13.1485).
6. Negligence — Recreational Use — Summary Judgment.
Plaintiffs sufficiently stated a cause of action in wilful and wan ton misconduct for injuries to a person using the defendant’s land for recreational purposes where the plaintiffs alleged that a 14-year-old boy drowned by stepping off a submerged structure into a drop-off 50 feet from the shore of an artiScial lake hooded by the defendant city for use as a reservoir for its water supply, the submerged structure appears on maps made before the land was hooded and is now visible when the water level is low, from the existence of tire tracks to the water, a nearby parking area, and a footpath to the water, the city knew or should have known that swimmers used the lake and were exposed to the danger created by the submerged structure, the defendant had the ability to avoid the harm by removing the structure or by posting a warning of its existence, and the structure allowed the decedent, who could not swim, to wade much farther into the lake than he otherwise could have waded to where he suddenly encountered deep water with an undertow and drowned (MCL 300.201; MSA 13.1485).
7. Negligence — Recreational Use — Attractive Nuisance.
The express provisions of the recreational use statute bar claims alleging common-law attractive nuisance grounded in a landowner defendant’s ordinary negligence; the plaintiff must allege that the injuries received by the person using the land for recreational purposes were caused by the defendant’s gross negligence or wilful and wanton misconduct (MCL 300.201; MSA 13.1485).
Marston, Sachs, Nunn, Kates, Kadushin & O’Hare, P.C. (by Kathleen L. Bogas), for plaintiffs.
Foster, Swift, Collins & Coey, P.C. (by John L. Collins, James D. Adkins, and Michael J. Schmedlen), for defendant.

Opinion:
Ryan, J.
This is an appeal from a Court of Appeals affirmance of a summary judgment dismissing the plaintiffs' case for failure to state an actionable claim under the so-called recreational use statute, MCL 300.201; MSA 13.1485. The only question before us is whether the plaintiffs have alleged facts sufficient to state a claim for gross negligence or willful and wanton misconduct. Our task is thus limited because the recreational use law authorizes recovery in the circumstances of this case only if gross negligence or willful and wanton misconduct is shown.
We agree that no actionable claim for gross negligence is made out in the plaintiffs' pleadings because there is no allegation therein of the defendant's subsequent negligence. See Gibbard v Cursan, 225 Mich 311; 196 NW 398 (1923).
We also agree that the plaintiff has alleged facts sufficient, if barely so, to make out a case for willful and wanton misconduct as that concept is defined in Gibbard, supra.
This separate opinion is written, however, because we do not subscribe to much of the analysis in our brother's opinion, particularly his assessment of the cases of Thone v Nicholson, 84 Mich App 538; 269 NW2d 665 (1978), and Thomas v Consumers Power Co, 394 Mich 459; 231 NW2d 653 (1975).
The interlocutory posture of this litigation suggests that this appeal is an inappropriate opportunity to attempt to reconcile the confused and disparate pronouncements of Michigan's appellate judiciary concerning the concepts of gross negligence and willful and wanton misconduct. To accomplish that desirable task, it is necessary, we think, to disown much of what has been written in this Court and in the Court of Appeals in earlier cases, and to enunciate a simple and easily understood test defining both gross negligence and willful and wanton misconduct. The more appropriate occasion for that effort will be the time when a case is before us upon a factual record adequate to enable those who will read our pronouncement to better understand it because of the illuminating reflection of the factual and legal context in which it is said. That cannot and ought not to be done on an appeal from the grant of a motion for summary judgment for failure to plead an actionable claim under GCR 1963, 117.2(1).
Until such record is made and presented, we should be guided, indeed bound, as the lawyers before us are, by this Court's last best effort to define gross negligence and willful and wanton misconduct. That effort was last accomplished best, even if not in the context of the recreational use act, in Gibbard, supra. Gibbard is a well-reasoned case whose three-element formula for determining willful and wanton misconduct, however, is poorly stated. If the three-prong test is read in the context of the instructive analysis which precedes it in Gibbard, it becomes evident that the rule of the case is that willful and wanton misconduct is made out only if the conduct alleged shows an intent to harm or, if not that, such indifference to whether harm will result as to be the equivalent of a willingness that it does. Willful and wanton misconduct is not, as the Gibbard Court observed, a high degree of carelessness. The poorly phrased three-prong test for willful and wanton misconduct in Gibbard is cast entirely in language of ordinary negligence until, in the third element, it is said that it must be shown that an injury "is likely". It is in that concept — the notion that in the circumstances of a given case the injury is probable, or to be expected, or likely — that is found the requisite indifference to harm tantamount to a willingness that it occur, if not a specific intent that it does, which distinguishes willful and wanton misconduct from ordinary negligence.
Upon careful examination of the allegations of the plaintiffs' fourth amended complaint, conceding the truth of all the well-pleaded allegations and resolving all inferences properly to be drawn therefrom in plaintiffs' favor, we are satisfied that, on the whole, the plaintiff has alleged, if barely, facts essentially equivalent to an assertion that thé City of Adrian, in its acts and omissions, was indifferent to the likelihood that catastrophe would come to a member of the public using the lake, an indifference essentially equivalent to a willingness that it occur.
We do not find the language of the three-prong test of Gibbard a satisfactory expression of the standard to be used for identifying willful and wanton misconduct, and do not think it is a faithful summarization of the analysis which it is intended to encapsulate. We would describe the test differently, but only upon a fully developed factual record.
Fitzgerald, C.J., and Kavanagh and Coleman, JJ., concurred with Ryan, J.
The nuisance issue raised by the appellant, and addressed in part IV of our brother's opinion, is but an aspect of this issue. We concur in his resolution of it.
The three-element formula which Justice Clark adopted to summarize his analysis of the difference between a high degree of negligence and willful and wanton misconduct was taken, with attribution of course, from a legal encyclopedia:
"According to note, 69 LRA 516, and text, 20 RCL, p 145, the elements necessary to characterize the injury in the case at bar as wilfully inflicted are:
" '(1) Knowledge of a situation requiring the exercise of ordinary care and diligence to avert injury to another; (2) ability to avoid the resulting harm by ordinary care and diligence in the use of the means at hand; (3) the omission to use such care and diligence to avert the threatened danger, when to the ordinary mind it must be apparent that the result is likely to prove disastrous to another.' " Gibbard v Cursan, 225 Mich 322.