Court Opinion

ID: 9685754
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:00:56.613516+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:09.965675
License: Public Domain

*83MacKenzie, P.J.
(dissenting in part). I respectfully dissent from part of the majority’s opinion. In my opinion, the trial court properly granted partial summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs on defendants’ claim of breach of duty to disclose a known and unreasonably dangerous condition associated with the wood-burning stove.
The parties evidently agree that their land contract transferred the premises from plaintiffs to defendants "as is.” In Lenawee Co Bd of Health v Messerly, 417 Mich 17, 32; 331 NW2d 203 (1982), the Supreme Court stated that, if an "as is” clause is to have any meaning at all, it must be interpreted to refer to those defects which were unknown at the time the contract was executed.
The majority holds that because there exists a question as to whether Raymond Stewart knew that the stove’s damper was wired open partial summary judgment was improper. It seems to me that, in so deciding, the majority has lost sight that GCR 1963, 117.2(3) does not require that there be no issues of fact before summary judgment may be properly granted; it requires the nonexistence of material factual disputes. Whether further factual development would yield an affirmative or negative response to the majority’s purported issue is of no consequence. It remains undisputed that while plaintiffs lived in the home they continually operated the stove from the time of its installation to the time of the sale to defendants. As the trial court implicitly recognized, wiring or no wiring, the only logical conclusion to be drawn from this fact is that plaintiffs were unaware of a dangerous and concealed defect in the stove.
Accordingly, I would affirm the decision of the trial court as to the defendant’s counterclaim.