Court Opinion

ID: 9915324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-05 06:04:58.588423+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:10:03.628208
License: Public Domain

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
                  revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.

                           STATE OF MICHIGAN

                             COURT OF APPEALS

LINDA MOLITORIS,                                                       UNPUBLISHED
                                                                       January 4, 2024
               Plaintiff-Appellant,

v                                                                      No. 364820
                                                                       Livingston Circuit Court
SAINT MARY MAGDALEN                                                    LC No. 22-31366-NO
CATHOLIC CHURCH,

               Defendant-Appellee.

Before: GLEICHER, C.J., and SWARTZLE and YATES, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

         The landscape of slip-and-fall jurisprudence in Michigan changed dramatically on July 28,
2023, when our Supreme Court rendered its opinion in Kandil-Elsayed v F & E Oil, Inc, 512 Mich
95; ___ NW2d ___ (2023), which reframed the analysis of open and obvious defects in premises
liability cases filed by invitees. But in designing that new approach, our Supreme Court reaffirmed
“that the three traditional status-based categories—licensee, invitee, and trespasser—remain” the
law in Michigan. Id. at 143. Plaintiff, Linda Molitoris, insists that she can avail herself of the new
approach because she was an invitee when she fell on ice in a church parking lot. The trial court
rejected plaintiff’s premises liability claim, characterizing her as a licensee (rather than an invitee)
and concluding that she cannot meet any of the requirements she must satisfy to prevail on a claim
for premises liability as a licensee. We agree, so we shall affirm the trial court’s award of summary
disposition to defendant under MCR 2.116(C)(10).

                                  I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

       Plaintiff is both a parishioner and a volunteer at defendant, Saint Mary Magdalen Catholic
Church (“the Church”). On February 22, 2021, plaintiff went to the Church to perform volunteer
work at Magdalen’s Kitchen, a weekly event where free meals are prepared and served to those in
the community. Plaintiff arrived at the Church at 3:00 p.m. that day. She did not encounter issues
with snow or ice as she walked through the parking lot and went into the Church. Plaintiff did not
go outside again until she left the Church at approximately 7:00 p.m. Plaintiff exited through the
same door she had used to enter the Church, and then she walked towards her vehicle in the parking

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lot. Plaintiff asserts that she was looking where she was going and did not see snow or ice in the
parking lot. Plaintiff does not remember precipitation falling at that time, and she does not recall
the pavement in the parking lot appearing wet. Plaintiff insists that the parking lot was dark at the
time she left and that the lights in the parking lot were not on. As plaintiff stepped off the sidewalk
and into the parking-lot area, she suddenly slipped and fell to the ground. Plaintiff alleges that, as
she was on the ground, she could feel ice in the area around her. As a result of her fall, plaintiff
suffered a fractured left wrist that required surgery, fractures to her pelvis, and a fractured hip.

        On January 18, 2022, plaintiff filed this action against the Church for ordinary negligence
and premises liability. When the Church sought summary disposition, plaintiff agreed to dismiss
her claim for ordinary negligence and proceed only on a premises-liability theory. Plaintiff argued
that the Church owed her a duty as an invitee. The Church asserted that it did not owe her a duty
based on the fact that plaintiff was a licensee when she suffered her injuries. The trial court decided
from the bench on January 5, 2023, that plaintiff was a licensee and awarded summary disposition
under MCR 2.116(C)(10) to the Church on that basis. The trial court thereafter memorialized its
ruling in an order entered on January 24, 2023. This appeal now follows.

                                       II. LEGAL ANALYSIS

         Plaintiff argues on appeal that the trial court erred in characterizing her as a licensee, rather
than an invitee, because that determination must be made by a jury. Beyond that, plaintiff contends
that the Church breached a duty it owed to her and had constructive notice of the ice on which she
fell. For those reasons, plaintiff asserts that the trial court erred in awarding summary disposition
to the Church under MCR 2.116(C)(10). “We review de novo a trial court’s decision on a motion
for summary disposition.” El-Khalil v Oakwood Healthcare, Inc, 504 Mich 152, 159; 934 NW2d
665 (2019). A motion under MCR 2.116(C)(10) tests the factual sufficiency of a claim. Id. at 160.
“When considering such a motion, a trial court must consider all evidence submitted by the parties
in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion.” Id. The motion may be granted only
“when there is no genuine issue of material fact.” Id. “ ‘A genuine issue of material fact exists
when the record leaves open an issue upon which reasonable minds might differ.’ ” Id. Applying
these standards, we must decide whether the trial court properly determined that plaintiff could not
succeed on her premises liability claim.

                                    A. INVITEE OR LICENSEE

         “All negligence actions, including those based on premises liability, require a plaintiff to
prove four essential elements: duty, breach, causation, and harm.” Kandil-Elsayed, 512 Mich at
110. “The first element, duty, ‘is essentially a question whether the relationship between the actor
and the injured person gives rise to any legal obligation on the actor’s part for the benefit of the
injured person.’ ” Id. “In the context of premises liability, ‘a landowner’s duty to a visitor depends
on that visitor’s status.’ ” Id. at 111. Michigan law recognizes “three common-law categories for
persons who enter upon the land or premises of another: (1) trespasser, (2) licensee, or (3) invitee.”
Stitt v Holland Abundant Life Fellowship, 462 Mich 591, 596; 614 NW2d 88 (2000). Each of the
“categories corresponds to a different standard of care that is owed to those injured on the owner’s
premises.” Id. “Thus, a landowner’s duty to a visitor depends on that visitor’s status.” Id.

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        The outcome of plaintiff’s premises-liability claim largely turns on whether plaintiff was a
licensee or an invitee when she fell on ice in the Church parking lot. A landowner like the Church
owes a much greater duty to an invitee than to a licensee. A licensee is someone permitted to enter
the premises of another by virtue of the landowner’s consent. Sanders v Perfecting Church, 303
Mich App 1, 4; 840 NW2d 401 (2013). A landowner owes a licensee only a duty to warn of hidden
dangers “the landowner knows or has reason to know of, and only if the licensee does not know
or have reason to know of the dangers involved.” Burnett v Bruner, 247 Mich App 365, 378; 636
NW2d 773 (2001). Significantly, a landowner “owes no duty of inspection or affirmative care to
make the premises safe” for a visit by a licensee. Stitt, 462 Mich at 596.

         In contrast, an invitee is a person “who enters upon the land of another upon an invitation”
that “carries with it an implied representation, assurance, or understanding that reasonable care has
been used to prepare the premises” and make the premises safe for the invitee. Id. at 596-597. A
landowner “has a duty of care, not only to warn the invitee of any known dangers, but the additional
obligation to also make the premises safe[.]” Id. at 597. “Thus, an invitee is entitled to the highest
level of protection under premises liability law.” Id. On appeal, plaintiff contends that, when she
fell in the Church parking lot, she was an invitee entitled to the highest level of premises liability
law protection. For its part, the Church insists that the trial court properly characterized plaintiff
at that point in time as a mere licensee.

        Individuals who enter onto church property for noncommercial purposes are licensees as a
matter of law. Id. at 595, 604. The primary consideration when determining a visitor’s status at
the time of the injury is “the owner’s reason for inviting persons onto the premises[.]” Id. at 604.
If evidence is presented “from which invitee status might be inferred, it is a question for the jury.”
Id. at 595. But when a plaintiff fails to offer evidence that creates a factual dispute as to whether
a church invited people onto its property for “an essential commercial purpose,” see id. at 606, the
plaintiff’s status as a licensee should be decided by the court. Sanders, 303 Mich App at 5-6. The
predominant or essential purpose for which the Church invited people onto its premises for
Magdalen’s Kitchen was to feed the less fortunate. No one bought any meals at that community
event, so any income generated by that event should be considered insufficient to establish that the
event had a commercial purpose. Stitt, 462 Mich at 604 (“the prospect of pecuniary gain is a sort
of quid pro quo for the higher duty of care owed to invitees”).

        Here, the trial court reasoned that, “at the time she fell, [p]laintiff was on the [d]efendant’s
premises as a volunteer, and her activities were not commercial in nature, nor done for commercial
purposes.” Similarly, in Kosmalski v St John’s Lutheran Church, 261 Mich App 56; 680 NW2d
50 (2004), this Court concluded that a volunteer injured while working at a church’s vacation bible
school “in the job of a playground helper” was not offering “child-care services for ‘a material or
commercial purpose’ rather than one of ‘a spiritual, religious or social nature.’ ” Id. at 57, 62-63.
This Court reached that conclusion, and thereby treated the injured volunteer as a licensee, even
though the volunteer was not a church member. Id. at 62. Accordingly, the trial court in this case
ruled in a manner faithful to our precedent in concluding that plaintiff was a licensee—as opposed
to an invitee—when she went to the Church to serve as a volunteer at Magdalen’s Kitchen.

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                           B. PLAINTIFF’S CLAIM AS A LICENSEE

        Our conclusion that plaintiff was a licensee, rather than an invitee, when she fell on ice and
suffered injuries in the Church parking lot does not necessarily defeat her premises liability claim.
Indeed, Kosmalski illustrates that a licensee injured on the premises of a church while performing
volunteer activities may survive summary disposition when there are “hidden dangers the [church]
knows or has reason to know of, if the hidden danger involves an unreasonable risk of harm and
the licensee does not know or have reason to know of the hidden danger and the risk involved.”
Id. at 65. In those circumstances, the church owes the licensee “a duty to warn the licensee of any
hidden dangers[.]” Id. To be sure, the duty to warn is limited to hazards the church actually knows
exist, so the church owes no duty to warn of hazards just because further inspection might have
revealed the hazards. Shaw v Wiegartz, 1 Mich App 271, 277; 135 NW2d 565 (1965). Also, if
the licensee knows or has reason to know of a hazard and the risk involved, the church has no duty
to warn the licensee of the hazard. Blackwell v Franchi, 502 Mich 918, 919; 914 NW2d 900
(2018). In sum, Michigan does not impose “a duty owed by a landowner to his licensees to repair
or to inspect his property.” Burnett, 247 Mich App at 372. “Rather, the landowner simply owes
the licensee a duty to warn of unreasonably dangerous conditions, when the licensee neither knows
nor has reason to know of the condition and risk involved.” Id.

        In granting the Church summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10), the trial court relied
on four conclusions on which no genuine issue of material fact exists. First, the record contains
no evidence that the Church was aware of the icy condition of the parking lot. Second, plaintiff
has lived in Michigan for decades and readily understood on the evening of her fall that there could
be ice in the parking lot on a cold day in February. Third, plaintiff has not established that the ice
on which she fell presented an unreasonable risk of harm. Fourth, because plaintiff was a licensee,
the Church had no duty to inspect the parking lot, discover the ice, or either remove the ice or warn
plaintiff of its existence. Placing these conclusions in the analysis of a premises liability claim of
a licensee such as plaintiff, the trial court appropriately resolved defendant’s summary disposition
motion. Specifically, the Church owed no duty to warn plaintiff of the icy parking lot because the
Church was unaware of that hazard, the Church had no duty to inspect the parking lot, and plaintiff
had sufficient experience in Michigan to know, or have reason to know, of the risk of ice on a cold
night in February. See Stitt, 462 Mich at 596. Beyond that, the icy parking lot did not constitute
an “unreasonably dangerous condition.” Perkoviq v Delcor Homes–Lake Shore Pointe, Ltd, 466
Mich 11, 19-20; 643 NW2d 212 (2002) (“The mere presence of ice, snow, or frost on a sloped
rooftop [off which plaintiff fell] generally does not create an unreasonably dangerous condition.”).
Consequently, even though “a landowner owes a licensee a duty to warn the licensee of any hidden
dangers the owner knows or has reason to know of, if the hidden danger involves an unreasonable
risk of harm and the licensee does not know or have reason to know of the hidden danger and the
risk involved[,]” Kosmalski, 262 Mich App at 65, plaintiff cannot satisfy any—much less all—of
those requirements. As a result, the trial court correctly awarded summary disposition to defendant
under MCR 2.116(C)(10) on plaintiff’s premises liability claim.

       Affirmed.

                                                              /s/ Brock A. Swartzle
                                                              /s/ Christopher P. Yates

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