Opinion ID: 843020
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: governmental immunity and the defective highway exception

Text: It is well understood, and not challenged here, that governmental agencies, with a few exceptions, are generally statutorily immune from tort liability. The governmental tort liability act (GTLA), MCL 691.1401 et seq., broadly shields a governmental agency from tort liability if the governmental agency is engaged in the exercise or discharge of a governmental function. MCL 691.1407(1). The act enumerates several exceptions to governmental immunity that permit a plaintiff to pursue a claim against a governmental agency. [3] Our decision in this case requires us to examine MCL 691.1404. As previously indicated, the statute provides: As a condition to any recovery for injuries sustained by reason of any defective highway, the injured person, within 120 days from the time the injury occurred, except as otherwise provided in subsection (3) [4] shall serve a notice on the governmental agency of the occurrence of the injury and the defect. The notice shall specify the exact location and nature of the defect, the injury sustained and the names of the witnesses known at the time by the claimant. [MCL 691.1404(1).] Plaintiff, having served her notice 140 days after her fall, acknowledges that she did not serve a notice on the road commission within 120 days of her accident. Given that the plain language of the statute requires such notice as a condition for recovery for injuries sustained because of a defective highway, one merely reading the statute might assume that plaintiff's complaint would have been dismissed. Because this Court's decisions in Hobbs and Brown engrafted an actual prejudice component onto the statute, the trial court could not dismiss the case. [5] It is valuable in considering the defensibility of this interpretation of the statute to first survey this Court's cases concerning notice provisions, including the provision at issue here.