Duffy v. Department of Natural Resources, 490 Mich. 198

Plaintiff was injured riding an off-road vehicle on the Little Manistee Trail, a state-owned trail maintained by the DNR, in Lake County.
Plaintiff sued the State and the DNR seeking recovery under the highway exception to governmental immunity (GTLA) for failure to maintain the trail in reasonable repair.
Lower courts treated the trail as a trailway and within or near the highway exception, leading to diverging outcomes about immunity.
The Legislature added trailways to the GTLA definition of highway in 1999, creating a contested interpretive issue in this case.
The majority held the Trail is a trailway not on the highway and thus not a covered highway; the dissent would treat it as a road open for public travel, i.e., a highway.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Is the Little Manistee Trail a Highway?	Duffy argues the Trail is a road or trailway within GTLA highway scope.	DNR argues the Trail is not a highway because it is a trailway not on the highway.	Trail is not a highway.
If not a highway, does the trail nonetheless fall within the highway exception by virtue of being a road or a trailway on the highway?	If a road/open for public travel, the Trail could be a highway under GTLA.	Because it is not a highway, the highway exception does not apply regardless of road-like attributes.	Not applicable; tested as not a highway, so no highway exception.

Nawrocki v. Macomb County Road Comm, 463 Mich. 143 (2000) (established limits of the highway exception and exclusions of sidewalks, crosswalks)
Grimes v Dep't of Transp, 475 Mich. 72 (2006) (interprets highway exception and related statutory terms)
Robinson v City of Lansing, 486 Mich. 1 (2010) (treats pari materia readings of GTLA provisions; statutory interpretation guidance)
Sutiles v Dep't of Transp, 457 Mich. 635 (1998) (highway exception structure prior to trailway addition)
Remus v Grand Rapids, 274 Mich. 577 (1936) (principle of reading related statutes in pari materia)