Grimes v. Michigan Department of Transportation

• Decision Date: 31 May 2006
• Docket Number: Docket No. 127901. Calendar No. 1.
• Citation: Grimes v. Michigan Department of Transportation, 715 N.W.2d 275, 475 Mich. 72 (Mich. 2006)
• Parties: Michael GRIMES and Tamara Grimes, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Page 275

715 N.W.2d 275

475 Mich. 72

Michael GRIMES and Tamara Grimes, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v.MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, Defendant-Appellant.

Docket No. 127901. Calendar No. 1.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

Argued January 10, 2006.

Decided May 31, 2006.

G.W. Caravas & Associates, P.C.(by Gary W. Caravas), Clinton Township, for the plaintiffs.

Michael A. Cox, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, and Vincent J. Leone, Assistant Attorney General, Lansing, for the defendant.

Opinion

YOUNG, J.

We granted leave to appeal to consider whether the shoulder is part of the "improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel" for the purpose of the highway exception to governmental immunity.We conclude that a shoulder is not within the exception because it is not "designed for vehicular travel."

In reaching this conclusion, we overrule the holding in our earlier decision in Gregg v. State Hwy. Dep't that a shoulder is "designed for vehicular travel."¹Gregg subsequently has been relied on by lower courts for the proposition that every shoulder is "designed for vehicular travel."As we will discuss, we find no support within Gregg, considering its internal inconsistencies, to give it this broad reading.Moreover, judging from the plain meaning of the statutory language and the context thereof enacted by the Legislature, we conclude that a shoulder, unlike a travel lane, is not the improved portion of a highway designed for vehicular travel.Accordingly, the order of the Court of Claims denying summary disposition on the basis of Gregg is reversed, the judgment of the Court of Appeals affirming that order is reversed, and this case is remanded to the Court of Claims for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.Facts and Procedural History

On the morning of March 24, 2000, Alan Thisse traveled north on I-75 in the far left lane of the three-lane highway.Thisse testified in his deposition that as he passed an entrance ramp he ran over a mound of dirt that forced his vehicle onto the left shoulder of the highway.The left shoulder consisted of a three-foot-wide strip of asphalt with an adjoining two-foot-wide gravel strip.The asphalt portion of the shoulder shared the same grade as the travel lanes.The gravel portion, however, was lower.²Thisse's two left tires dropped onto the gravel surface.As Thisse left the highway travel lane, plaintiffMichael Grimes had just entered onto northbound I-75.It is alleged that when Thisse recovered and reentered the highway, the grade differential between the gravel and the asphalt surfaces caused Thisse to lose control of his vehicle, veer into the far right lane, and crash into Grimes's vehicle.As a result of the accident, plaintiffMichael Grimes suffered permanent quadriplegia.

PlaintiffsMichael Grimes and his wife Tamara filed actions against Alan and Douglas Thisse and defendantMichigan Department of Transportation(MDOT).³Plaintiffs brought negligence and nuisance claims against MDOT, claiming that MDOT negligently maintained the gravel portion of the shoulder where Thisse left the roadway.They argued that MDOT designed the shoulder intending that the gravel portion would gradually slope away from the asphalt portion.However, plaintiffs allege that MDOT failed to maintain that gradual slope, resulting in the drop-off that proximately caused plaintiffs' injuries.

MDOT moved for summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(7), asserting governmental immunity as a defense.It argued that the shoulder fell outside the scope of the highway exception because it was not an improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel.Relying on Gregg,the Court of Claims denied MDOT's motion for summary disposition.⁴

The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the Court of Claims.⁵In a short unpublished per curiam decision, the panel relied on Gregg as well as subsequent Court of Appealscases following Gregg in holding that a shoulder is part of the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel.⁶The panel also held that this Court's subsequent decision in Nawrocki v. Macomb Co. Rd. Comm.⁷ had not affected the jurisprudential validity of Gregg.

MDOT filed an application for leave to appeal, which this Court granted.⁸

II.Standard Of Review

This Court reviews motions for summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(7) de novo.⁹Questions of statutory interpretation are also reviewed de novo.¹⁰When this Court interprets statutory language, our primary goal is to discern the intent of the Legislature as expressed in the text of the statute.¹¹Where the language is clear and unambiguous, our inquiry ends and we apply the statute as written.¹²

III.Analysis

a. Governmental Immunity and the Highway Exception

The governmental tort liability act (GTLA)¹³ broadly shields a governmental agency¹⁴ from tort liability "if the governmental agency is engaged in the exercise or discharge of a governmental function."¹⁵The act enumerates several exceptions to governmental immunity that permit a plaintiff to pursue a claim against a governmental agency.¹⁶This case concerns what is known colloquially as the "highway exception."That provision states, in pertinent part:

[E]ach governmental agency having jurisdiction over a highway shall maintain the highway in reasonable repair so that it is reasonably safe and convenient for public travel.A person who sustains bodily injury or damage to his or her property by reason of failure of a governmental agency to keep a highway under its jurisdiction in reasonable repair and in a condition reasonably safe and fit for travel may recover the damages suffered by him or her from the governmental agency . . . .The duty of the state and the county road commissions to repair and maintain highways, and the liability for that duty, extends only to the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel and does not include sidewalks, trailways, crosswalks, or any other installation outside of the improved portion of the highway designed for vehicular travel.[¹⁷]

The GTLA provides its own definition of "highway," which is "a public highway, road, or street that is open for public travel and includes bridges, sidewalks, trailways, crosswalks, and culverts on the highway."¹⁸This definition of a highway excludes "alleys, trees, and utility poles."¹⁹Beyond defining the term "highway," the GTLA does not define these additional terms.It also does not define "shoulder" or include shoulder among the list of features such as bridges and sidewalks that are deemed to be part of a highway.

The scope of the highway exception is narrowly drawn.Under its plain language, every governmental agency with jurisdiction over a highway owes a duty to "maintain the highway in reasonable repair so that it is reasonably safe and convenient for public travel."However, when the governmental agency is the state or a county road commission, as is the case here, the Legislature constricted the scope of the highway exception by limiting the portion of the highway covered by that exception.For these agencies, the highway exception does not extend to an installation "outside" the improved portion of the highway such as a sidewalk, trailway, or crosswalk, although these features are included in the general definition of a "highway."The duty of these agencies to repair and maintain does not extend to every "improved portion of highway."It attaches only "to the improved portion of the highway" that is also "designed for vehicular travel."As we discuss later in this opinion, such narrowing of the duty supplies important textual clues regarding the Legislature's intent concerning whether a shoulder falls within or without the protection afforded by the GTLA.

Although the specific issues considered in Nawrocki v. Macomb Co. Rd. Comm.,²⁰ are not before us today, that case is particularly instructive in this case.²¹In Nawrocki,this Court reconciled several of our previous inconsistent highway exception cases, and clarified the scope of the governmental agency's duty under the highway exception.We held in Nawrocki that "if the condition is not located in the actual roadbed designed for vehicular travel, the narrowly drawn highway exception is inapplicable. . . ."²²Put differently, the highway exception creates a duty to maintain only the "`traveled portion, paved or unpaved, of the roadbed actually designed for public vehicular travel.'"²³Our focus, then, consistent with Nawrocki, is determining whether a shoulder is actually designed for public vehicular travel.

b. Gregg v. State Hwy. Dep't.

Plaintiffs urge this Court to affirm the judgments of the lower courts on the basis of our decision in Gregg v. State Hwy. Dep't.,²⁴ which we decided before Nawrocki.In Gregg,this Court considered whether the highway exception was available to a bicyclist injured by a defect in "a designated bicycle path on the inner portion of the paved shoulder of a state highway."²⁵The plaintiff suffered extensive injuries when he struck a pothole on the bicycle path and overturned his bicycle.For purposes of deciding whether the trial court had properly granted the defendant's motion for summary disposition, this Court relied on a photograph of the accident scene, which pictured a bicycle path situated between the "traveled portion of the highway and its paved shoulder."²⁶The majority in Gregg reversed the judgment granting summary disposition that had been entered in favor of the defendant concluding that the shoulder was designed for vehicular travel.

Gregg's first task was to distinguish the bicycle path in that case from the bicycle path at issue in Roy v. Dep't of Transportation.²⁷Roy also involved an injury sustained on a bicycle path, and we concluded there that the plaintiff's claim was barred by governmental immunity.In distinguishing the two cases, the Gregg majority placed a great deal of...