Opinion ID: 765768
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Open and obvious danger doctrine

Text: 58 In Part VI.C. of its opinion, the district court opines that Hollister should not prevail in a case such as this one because the danger from clothing touching a hot stove is open and obvious. We find this to be a misapplication of the open and obvious danger doctrine, which was articulated in Fisher v. Johnson Milk Co., Inc., 174 N.W.2d 752 (Mich. 1970). In that case, the plaintiff slipped on a patch of ice and dropped a wire carrier full of glass milk bottles. The bottles broke, injuring him. The plaintiff claimed that the manufacturer should have placed a bottom on the carrier, which would have prevented glass fragments from scattering when the case was dropped. See id. at 752-53. Inaffirming the grant of summary judgment for the defendant, the Michigan Supreme Court stated that the danger of bottles breaking when dropped was obvious to everyone, and that there was no duty to construct the carrier differently or to warn consumers. See id. 59 The open and obvious danger doctrine set forth in Johnson Milk is not applicable in the present case because the relative flammability of clothing is not obvious to the average consumer. Although the danger of a shirt's igniting when placed in contact with a hot stove is obvious, the relative flammability of one shirt versus another is not. Hollister alleged that the exemplar fabric burned explosively, like newspaper, but that other fabrics did not. Had she established a prima facie case, she would not have been hindered by the open and obvious danger doctrine.