Opinion ID: 849195
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: How the cases confuse the issue, and what contributory negligence has to do with it

Text: Unfortunately, the Restatement approach can be somewhat difficult to apply because it bears some similarity to the contributory negligence doctrine. I believe that these similarities have caused Michigan's case law on the open and obvious doctrine to be somewhat imprecise. The potential for confusion stems from the fact that, in both contributory negligence and in open and obvious cases, liability can be suspended because of action (or inaction) on the part of the plaintiff. In both instances, a particular defendant may be absolved of liability for negligence even though he owes a duty to the plaintiff. Despite that similarity, though, there is a distinct difference between the open and obvious rule and the rule of contributory negligence. In contributory negligence cases, a defendant is absolved of liability even where he acts completely negligently. Contributory negligence, a defensive mechanism, is based on the policy that damages are not recoverable where the plaintiff and the defendant are both partially at fault. The open and obvious danger doctrine, on the other hand, relies on the standard of care. Where the defendant fails to protect his invitees from an unreasonable risk of harm posed by a foreseeable danger, he will be liable. If the defendant is absolved from liability under the open and obvious doctrine, the reason for the absolution is not that the plaintiff acted negligently. Instead, the reason is that the open and obvious danger of the condition is a circumstance under the standard of care. The possessor will be deemed to have acted reasonably under those circumstances. The idea that defendants should prevail where the plaintiff fails to heed an open and obvious danger has been around for a while, but, unfortunately, the focus on the standard of care has been lost in some instances. The reason is partially that the open and obvious doctrine predates Michigan's shift from contributory negligence to comparative negligence. In the era of contributory negligence, failure to precisely separate concepts of duty, liability, and standard of care bore little consequence because plaintiffs could lose simply by virtue of their own negligence. As Justice Levin pointed out in dissent in Riddle v. McLouth Steel Products, 440 Mich. 85, 485 N.W.2d 676 (1992), these contributory negligence cases sometimes expressed their holdings in terms of a no-duty rule: that a possessor owes no duty to protect his invitees from open and obvious dangers. For example, in Caniff, the plaintiff sought to recover damages for an injury sustained when he fell through a hatchway left open on the deck of a ship. The Court denied recovery. The primary reasons for the denial were that (1) the plaintiff was an experienced sailor who was familiar with ships and who knew that hatchways were often left open while the ship was at port and, therefore, had reason to expect that the hatchway he fell into would have been left open, (2) that the plaintiff failed to exercise due care when he walked carelessly forward in the dark, (3) that the plaintiff's actions constituted inexcusable negligence, and (4) that the general premises liability rule would not apply in cases where the plaintiff knows or should know that danger exists because it is upon the plaintiff to avoid the peril. In other words, reduced to its simplest terms, Caniff held that the plaintiff should have known better and should have looked where he was going. In Garret v. WS Butterfield Theatres, Inc, 261 Mich. 262, 246 N.W. 57 (1933), the plaintiff was injured while entering a rest room. The entryway required patrons to step down into the rest room. Plaintiff failed to see the step, and fell upon entry. The Court stated that [d]ifferent floor levels in private and public buildings, connected by steps, are so common that the possibility of their presence is anticipated by prudent persons. The construction is not negligent unless, by its character, location, or surrounding circumstances, a reasonably prudent person would not be likely to expect a step or see it. Id. at 263-264, 246 N.W. 57. The Court denied recovery, stating that the defendant was not guilty of negligence because it owed no duty to prevent careless persons from hurting themselves. Id. at 264, 246 N.W. 57. Although these two early cases cited by the parties addressed the liability issue by stating that no duty was owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, it seems to me that the reason for the holding in both cases was that the plaintiff should have expected and heeded the danger. I posit that contributory negligence principles actually would require a two-step inquiry: (1) would the premises owner normally owe a duty to the plaintiff to keep the premises reasonably safe, and (2) would the premises owner be relieved of liability because of the affirmative defense of contributory negligence? In these cases, in order to bar recovery on the basis of the plaintiff's actions, the Court would have had to conclude either that there was no duty to keep the premises reasonably safe, that the premises were reasonably safe, or that the duty to keep the premises reasonably safe was offset by the plaintiff's duty to care for his own safety. If the court were to find that no duty existed, there would be no prima facie case of negligence. Were the court to find that the premises were reasonably safe, there would be no breach of the standard of care. If it were the plaintiff's own failure to protect himself that barred liability despite an unreasonable risk, liability would have been suspended under the contributory negligence doctrine. Two later cases seemed to recognize that there is a difference between the duty owed and the effect of contributory negligence on that duty. In Ackerberg v. Muskegon Osteopathic Hosp., 366 Mich. 596, 115 N.W.2d 290 (1962), the plaintiff sued the defendant for injuries sustained when he fell from a platform located outside a hospital entrance. The trial court denied recovery on two grounds. First, it held that the plaintiff failed to show a duty or its breach. Second, it held that the plaintiff failed to exercise reasonable care for his own safety and that the claim was barred because of the plaintiff's contributory negligence. The language used by the Ackerberg trial court seemed to be in line with Caniff and Garrett. However, this Court reversed, stating that jury questions existed regarding both whether the defendant hospital had a duty to construct a guardrail and whether the plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence. Another relevant case is Quinlivan, in which the plaintiff slipped and fell on some ice in the defendant's parking lot. This Court held that the defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff to use reasonable care to protect against the hazards arising from the accumulation of ice and snow. The case emphasized that business invitors owe invitees a duty to be reasonably sure that [the invitor] is not inviting [the invitee] into danger, and to that end, he must exercise ordinary care and prudence to render the premises reasonably safe for the visit. Quinlivan at 251, 235 N.W.2d 732 (quoting Blakeley v. White Star Line, 154 Mich. 635, 637, 118 N.W. 482 (1908)). Quinlivan overruled prior case law that said no duty was owed in cases involving the natural accumulation of ice and snow. Yet, the Court also noted that the plaintiff's actions could be considered in the context of contributory negligence. In my view, Quinlivan correctly determined the defendant's duty by referencing the relationship between the parties as well as the danger presented, and then viewed the plaintiff's negligence as affecting liability rather than alleviating the duty owed. In Placek v. Sterling Heights, 405 Mich. 638, 275 N.W.2d 511 (1979), this Court made the move from contributory to comparative negligence. If a plaintiff's negligence is considered in terms of liability rather than in terms of duty, the move would not necessarily have a huge effect on the scheme of analysis applied in premises liability cases, though it would have an effect on the plaintiff's ability to recover. For example, if the Caniff case were analyzed under a Quinlivan approach, the defendant ship owner could have prevailed on one of two theories: (1) the ship was reasonably safe, and ordinary care was exercised despite the fact that the hatch was left open, or (2) it was unreasonable to leave the hatch open, but the plaintiff nonetheless would lose because his own failure to exercise due care for his own safety contributed to his injury and barred recovery. Under comparative negligence principles, the defendant could still prevail if the ship was deemed reasonably safe despite the open hatch, but the ship owner would not necessarily prevail in the second instance. As such, there is a significant difference between an interpretation of the open and obvious doctrine that says, a defendant owes a duty to invitees to keep his premises reasonably safe, but that duty does not extend to protection against open and obvious dangers, and to say that, a defendant owes a duty to keep his premises reasonably safe, but he will not be held liable if the plaintiff fails to heed open and obvious dangers. It is this distinction that lies at the crux of the present case.