Court Opinion

ID: 9669830
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:09:46.550641+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:00.576379
License: Public Domain

Brickley, J.
(dissenting). This case arose out of the severe injuries that the plaintiffs’ decedent sustained when she was swept off a navigational pier into Lake Michigan. Before the occurrence of these events, the defendant city had entered into a memorandum of understanding (mou) with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which built the pier and another one nearby. In the MOU, the city promised to operate safety gates on the pier in return for the Corps of Engineers granting the city access to the piers. The relevant portion of the mou stated:
“B. The City of South Haven, Michigan has been granted responsibility for coordinating and controlling entrance to *689existing Federal navigational structures at the South Haven Harbor, during period[s] of inclement weather ....
“C. The responsibility for determining when gates erected on Federal structures are to be opened and closed, rest[s] with the City of South Haven, Michigan.
“The public shall be restricted from the North and South Federal piers in the City of South Haven during periods of inclement weather and when great danger to persons or property exists, said times to be determined by the City Manager, or a person designated by him. Gates will be locked during each emergency and reopened immediately thereafter." [Ante at 671 (emphasis supplied).]
The plaintiffs were foreclosed from suing the city in tort because of the governmental immunity act. MCL 691.1407; MSA 3.996(107). Instead, they sued the city in contract, arguing that the plaintiffs’ decedent was an intended third-party beneficiary of the mou.1 The trial court granted summary disposition for the city on this claim, and the Court of Appeals reversed.
The lead opinion would decide the case on the basis of third-party beneficiary law, rather than the point urged by the city that the mou is not an enforce*690able contract.2 In deciding that the plaintiffs’ decedent was not a third-party beneficiary of the MOU, the lead opinion relies upon the state’s statute regarding third-party contract beneficiaries, MCL 600.1405; MSA 27A.1405, and a decision of this Court, Greenlees v Owen Ames Kimball Co, 340 Mich 670; 66 NW2d 227 (1954). Neither of these authorities supports the reasoning of the lead opinion, however, and, in fact, both compel a result opposite to the lead opinion.
First, the statute. The lead opinion quotes the relevant statute “in pertinent part”:
“Any person for whose benefit a promise is made by way of contract, as hereinafter defined, has the same right to enforce said promise that he would have had if the said promise had been made directly to him as the promisee.
*691“(1) A promise shall be construed to have been made for the benefit of a person whenever the promisor of said promise had undertaken to give or to do or refrain from doing something directly to or for said person.” [Ante at 676, quoting MCL 600.1405; MSA 27A.1405.]
The lead opinion focuses its analysis on the word “directly” in the last sentence of the quoted statute, stating that “[t]his language indicates the Legislature’s intent to assure that contracting parties are clearly aware that the scope of their contractual undertakings encompasses a third party, directly referred to in the contract, before the third party is able to enforce the contract.” Ante at 677. There can be little doubt that the city was aware that “the scope of [its] contractual undertaking” under the MOU encompassed protecting those people who would go onto the pier during dangerous weather. Furthermore, the protection that the city undertook to provide was limited in scope: shutting and locking the safety gates when the weather conditions turned dangerous.
Thus, the lead opinion is incorrect in holding that the MOU “only references the public generally and includes no provision by which South Haven undertook to do anything directly for a designated class of persons that included plaintiffs’ daughter.” Id. at 682-683 (emphasis in the original). In stating that “[t]he public shall be restricted” from the pier “when great danger to persons . . . exists,” the MOU clearly “put[s the] contracting parties on notice that they are empowering third parties to enforce a contract” under the third-party beneficiary statute. Id. at 681-682. That class, consisting of those people who would use the pier during those dangerous periods, “is sufficiently described or designated.” Guardian Depositors Corp *692v Brown, 290 Mich 433, 438; 287 NW 798 (1939). The city need not protect anyone else, and may protect this class simply by closing and locking the gates at the appropriate time. Therefore, the class contemplated by the mou is not “the ‘public’ ” in general and is not “too broad ... to constitute a class that a contracting party could undertake directly to benefit under subsection 1405(1).” Ante at 683.
Significantly, the lead opinion fails to acknowledge the full effect of another “pertinent” section of this same statute on its analysis. Section 1405(2)(b) states that if the third-party beneficiary “is not . . . ascertainable at the time the promise becomes legally binding on the promisor then his rights shall become vested the moment he . . . becomes ascertainable . . . .” MCL 600.1405(2)(b); MSA 27A.1405(2)(b). This section of the statute indicates that “the public” is not “simply too broad a term” to designate a class of third-party beneficiaries if, as here, the contract identifies specific conditions a class of beneficiaries is to be protected from. Under such a contract, individual members of the protected class become ascertainable when they encounter those conditions.
If, as the lead opinion would hold, the Legislature indeed intended that the third-party beneficiary must be “directly referred to in the contract,” it surely would not have provided for unascertainable third-party beneficiaries, nor would it have provided that such beneficiaries’ rights in the contract vest once the person “becomes ascertainable.” As quoted above, the contract in the instant case provides that “the public shall be restricted” from the piers in question “during periods of inclement weather and when great danger to persons or property exists .... Gates will be *693locked during each emergency and reopened immediately thereafter.” There can be little question that those members of the public who would go out onto the pier “when great danger to persons” exists are the intended beneficiaries of this contract. More important, the parties to the contract were on notice that this class was intended to benefit from the contract, and that members of the class would become ascertainable when they attempted to use the pier during dangerous weather conditions.
Next, the lead opinion discusses our decision in Greenlees, supra, characterizing it as instructive regarding “the minimum level of specificity required to put contracting parties on notice that they are empowering third parties to enforce a contract.” Ante at 681-682. But the “specific” language in the Green-lees contract is no more specific than that in the instant case. In Greenlees, a building owner and a construction company contracted for renovation of the building. The contract stated that the work was to be performed “ ‘in such a way as to cause a minimum of disturbance to the daytime operations in the building.’ ” Ante at 682, quoting Greenlees at 676. The plaintiff in Greenlees was a furrier who was a tenant of the building, and whose merchandise was damaged by dust caused by the contractor’s work. This Court permitted the furrier to sue as an intended third-party beneficiary of the contract, relying upon the quoted contractual language.
Reading that language, however, it is apparent that, while the plaintiff was a tenant and a member of “ ‘a class who are habitually carrying on the daytime operations in the building,’ ” ante at 682, the contractor was only put on notice that his work should not *694cause too much disruption during the day. A common-sense reading of the contractual section relied upon by the lead opinion would only lead one to the conclusion that the contractor should not disturb business in the building by having his workmen or equipment in the public spaces during working hours. He would not be on notice that he has a duty to protect the tenants from dust damage.
In sharp contrast, in the instant case, it is difficult to imagine what purpose the contract might have except the protection of those members of the public who would venture out onto the pier during dangerous weather. This class of beneficiaries could be easily protected by simply carrying out the only real duty imposed on the city by the MOU: closing and locking the safety gates. The lead opinion attempts to answer this point by stating that “the focus of the MOU is to specify the respective duties of the two parties regarding restricting access to the pier.” Ante at 681. But this explanation ignores the only purpose of “restricting access to the pier,” which was to keep people off the pier when “great danger to persons or property exists.”
The lead opinion notes this Court’s approval in the Greenlees opinion of the American Jurisprudence restatement of third-party beneficiary law. Part of the section quoted by the lead opinion states that “ ‘[w]here the contract is primarily for the benefit of the parties thereto, the mere fact that a third person would be incidentally benefited does not give him a right to sue for its breach.’ ” Ante at 679, quoting Greenlees at 676, quoting 12 Am Jur, Contracts, § 282, p 834. But it cannot be argued that the contract in the instant case was “primarily,” or even at all for the *695benefit of “the parties thereto.” The only reason the parties entered into this contract was to benefit those members of the public who might go out onto the pier when it was dangerous to do so. This is a specific class of intended beneficiaries who clearly have the legal right to enforce the contract, once they become “ascertainable.” MCL 600.1405; MSA 27A.1405.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent and would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals.
Cavanagh and Kelly, JJ., concurred with Brickley, J.

 To the extent that the plaintiffs’ theory might be construed as a “way around” sovereign immunity, I note that the Legislature has explicitly stated that a “contractual undertaking of a governmental agency to maintain a state trunkline highway confers contractual rights only on the state transportation department and does not confer third party beneficiary or other contractual rights in any other person . . . .” MCL 691.1402(3); MSA 3.996(102)(3). This statute demonstrates the Legislature’s ability to exempt government defendants from liability for third-party beneficiaries of intergovernmental contracts. Obviously, this Court should defer to the Legislature’s determination whether and in which situations such liability is appropriate.

 The concurrence states that the mou is not supported by consideration and is therefore not a contract. It is plain, however, that the plaintiff has alleged facts sufficient to show that there is adequate consideration to support this contract. In the mou, the Corps of Engineers agreed to “furnish and install fence type barricades, with gates at the shore end of Federal pier structures . . . .” The corps was not legally required to furnish or install these gates, and therefore its agreement to do so constituted legal detriment to the corps. In exchange, the city agreed that “the responsibility for determining when gates erected on Federal structures are to be opened and closed, rest[s] with the City of South Haven, Michigan.” It also agreed that “[t]he public shall be restricted” from the piers “during periods of inclement weather and when great danger to persons or property exists, said times to be determined by the City Manager . . . .” The concurrence states that the city already had the statutory authority to “rope off or barricade” the pier. MCL 281.1191; MSA 18.1287(191). But the statute does not require the city to barricade the pier or even determine whether conditions are too dangerous for the pier to be used: before the mou, the city manager was free to ignore the weather on Lake Michigan. In contrast, under the mou, the city manager is contractually obligated to determine “when great danger to persons or property exists,” and he “shall” restrict the public from the piers at those times. Thus, the city has assumed a contractual duty constituting legal detriment. Pending proof of these alleged facts, consideration is established. Plastray Corp v Cole, 324 Mich 433, 440; 37 NW2d 162 (1949).