Scola v. JP Morgan Chase Bank, Nat'l Ass'n
| Decision Date | 02 October 2020 |
| Docket Number | COA: 338966,SC: 158903 |
| Citation | 949 N.W.2d 147 (Mem) |
| Parties | Frank Anthony SCOLA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. JP MORGAN CHASE BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, and JP Morgan Chase & Co., Defendants-Appellees, and Kathleen Scola, Estate of John Barrow Brown, and City of Wayne, Defendants. |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
On December 11, 2019, the Court heard oral argument on the application for leave to appeal the October 4, 2018 judgment of the Court of Appeals. On order of the Court, the application is again considered. MCR 7.305(H)(1). In lieu of granting leave to appeal, we REVERSE the judgment of the Court of Appeals, VACATE the January 31, 2017 order of the Wayne Circuit Court, and REMAND this case to the Wayne Circuit Court for further proceedings.
The plaintiff was injured in a head-on collision after his mother, the driver of the vehicle in which he was riding, turned the wrong way onto a one-way street when exiting the defendants’ parking lot. The plaintiff sued the defendants in part for negligence, asserting that the bank had a duty to warn exiting drivers that they were turning onto a one-way street. The circuit court granted summary disposition to the defendants under MCR 2.116(C)(10), finding that the action sounded in premises liability and concluding that the defendants did not have a duty to post warning signs because any danger associated with turning the wrong way on a one-way road was open and obvious. The Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court in a split decision.
The issue we consider is whether the plaintiff's complaint sounded in premises liability or ordinary negligence. When determining the gravamen of an action, we must read the whole complaint and look beyond its labels to determine the nature of the claim. Altobelli v. Hartmann , 499 Mich. 284, 299, 884 N.W.2d 537 (2016). This plaintiff's complaint sounds in ordinary negligence.
Premises liability is conditioned on the presence of both possession and control over the land. Merritt v. Nickelson , 407 Mich. 544, 552, 287 N.W.2d 178 (1980). "The invitor's legal duty is to exercise reasonable care to protect invitees from an unreasonable risk of harm caused by a dangerous condition of the land that the landowner knows or should know the invitees will not discover, realize, or protect themselves against." Bertrand v. Alan Ford, Inc. , 449 Mich. 606, 609, 537 N.W.2d 185 (1995) (quotation marks and citations omitted; emphasis added). Here, the dangerous condition that caused the plaintiff's injury—oncoming one-way traffic on a public street—was not on the defendants’ land. As such, the defendants owed no duty under premises liability principles to protect the plaintiff from that hazard.
The gravamen of the plaintiff's complaint is that the defendants assumed responsibility for placing traffic control signs on the bank's premises but failed to warn exiting motorists that the parking lot exit required motorists to turn onto a one-way street. In essence, the plaintiff claimed that although he was injured by a hazard outside of the defendants’ land, the defendants nevertheless owed or assumed a duty to warn him of that danger. If such a duty exists, an issue we do not reach, it arises under principles of ordinary negligence, not premises liability.
I agree with the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that plaintiff's claim sounds in premises liability given that plaintiff's allegations pertain to defendants’ failure as a premises owner to make its premises safe. The Court of Appeals majority appropriately rejected plaintiff's argument that the open and obvious danger doctrine does not apply because the subject one-way road was not located on the bank's premises by reasoning that "the alleged dangerous condition, the lack of warning signage at the exit driveway, was located (or should have been located, according to plaintiff) on the bank's premises." Scola v. JP Morgan Chase Bank , unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued October 4, 2018 (Docket No. 338966), p. 4, 2018 WL 4927141. Accordingly, I agree with the majority that "application of the open and obvious doctrine to the lack of signage regarding the one-way nature of Michigan Avenue is not precluded." Id . Because I further agree with the majority's conclusion that the lack of signage indicating the one-way nature of Michigan Avenue was open and obvious and that no special aspects of the parking lot removed it from the open and obvious danger doctrine, I would deny leave to appeal.
Markman, J., joins the statement of Zahra, J.
I dissent from the majority's decision because I believe that plaintiff's complaint sounds in premises liability. And, under that cause of action, I would hold that defendants are entitled to summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(10).
When plaintiff filed his complaint against defendants for "negligence," he did not specify whether he was seeking to recover under ordinary negligence or premises liability. In determining which claim plaintiff has raised, we must look past the labels to the gravamen of the complaint. Trowell v. Providence Hosp. & Med. Ctrs., Inc. , 502 Mich. 509, 529-530, 918 N.W.2d 645 (2018) (opinion by VIVIANO , J.). According to the majority, the nub of a premises-liability claim is that a dangerous condition exists on the defendant's land. Because the alleged hazard here only adjoined defendants’ property, the majority concludes that the complaint sounds in ordinary negligence. I disagree.
It is true that, in this context, ordinary negligence claims concern "the overt acts of a premises owner on his or her premises," whereas an allegation of "injury by a condition of the land ... sounds exclusively in premises liability." Kachudas v. Invaders Self Auto Wash, Inc. , 486 Mich. 913, 914, 781 N.W.2d 806 (2010). But here, plaintiff is not focused on defendants’ actions. Rather, the gist of the claim is that defendants failed to act; specifically, they failed to warn that the adjacent street, Michigan Avenue, was one-way. The allegations concern what defendants should have done on their land: "post signs and other traffic control devices and warnings in the parking lot/driveway where it meets West Michigan Avenue and in such other positions and places as to give adequate warning of the dangers created when a driver is entering the roadway from its private driveway" and "design, construct[ ], and maintain ... its parking lot/driveway where it meets West Michigan Avenue so that entering West Michigan Avenue would be reasonably safe and convenient for public travel."
This emphasis on defendants’ omission removes this claim from the realm of ordinary negligence. "It is axiomatic that there can be no tort liability unless [a] defendant[ ] owed a duty to [a] plaintiff." Hill v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. , 492 Mich. 651, 660, 822 N.W.2d 190 (2012) (alterations in original; quotation marks and citations omitted); see also Composto v. Albrecht , 328 Mich. App. 496, 500, 938 N.W.2d 755 (2019) (). The negligence standard does not generally impose a duty to act, but only requires that individuals use reasonable care when they do act. 2 Restatement Torts, 2d, § 314, p. 116 ; 2 Restatement Torts, 3d, Physical & Emotional Harm, § 37, comment c , p. 3.1 As we have stated, "It is a basic principle of negligence law that, as a general rule, ‘there is no duty that obligates one person to aid or protect another.’ " Bailey v. Schaaf , 494 Mich. 595, 604, 835 N.W.2d 413 (2013) (citation omitted); see also 2 Dobbs, Hayden & Bublick, Torts (2d ed.), § 405, p. 651 (). An exception to this general rule is that the "common law imposes a duty of care when a special relationship exists." Bailey , 494 Mich. at 604, 835 N.W.2d 413. One such relationship is that between landowners, including merchants, and their invitees. Id. ; see also United Scaffolding, Inc. v. Levine , 537 S.W.3d 463, 471 (Tex., 2017) () (quotation marks and citations omitted).
Plaintiff's claim is premised on this relationship. He does not allege that defendants took any negligent action that created a risk of harm. Rather, at base, he says that defendants’ failure to act caused the harm. But this assumes that defendants had some duty to act. The only possible source of such a duty would be plaintiff's status as an invitee on defendants’ land.2 In other words, the danger arose from defendants’ pure omission. And although the majority suggests the dangerous condition was the one-way street, plaintiff does not assert that the street, by itself, constitutes such a hazard. Rather, the street became hazardous because of things defendants failed to place on their own land such as signals or markings. For these reasons, plaintiff's claim sounds in premises liability, not ordinary negligence. And, because defendants had no duty to act, any ordinary negligence claim is doomed to fail.
My characterization of the complaint also finds support in the numerous cases and treatises that have addressed similar claims under a premises-liability framework. These sources likewise show why that claim fails here. The "traditional view—still the decided majority—weighs against imposing a duty to warn or otherwise protect tenants from dangers of traffic on adjacent streets over which the landlord has no right of possession, management, or control." Guerrero v. Alaska Housing Fin. Corp. , 123 P.3d 966, 971-972 (Alaska, 2005)...
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