Lead Opinion
Defendant appeals by right the order of the trial court denying defendant’s motion for summary disposition. Defendant filed a motion for summary disposition pursuant to MCR 2.116(C)(7) and (10) on the grounds of governmental immunity. Because we find that the trial court erred by concluding that plaintiff had satisfied the notice requirements of MCL 691.1404(1), and the defect was not cured by subsequent communications to defendant’s third-party claims administrator, we reverse.
I. BASIC FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Plaintiff alleged that she tripped and fell while stepping off a sidewalk onto a road in the city of Dearborn on July 11, 2008. She stated at her deposition that her left foot “went right into that pothole,” causing her to fall and sustain injuries. After attempting to ice and rest her foot, plaintiff had her husband take her to Oakwood Hospital that same day. Plaintiff stated that “They took x-rays and told me my foot was broken and that I’d have to go in and have a cast put on.”
Five days later, plaintiffs attorney sent a letter addressed to the “City Manager or Mayor’s Office” of defendant. The letter stated in relevant part:
RE: OUR CLIENT: PATRICIA MCLEAN; DATE OF INCIDENT: JULY 11, 2008; LOCATION OF INCIDENT: PUBLIC STREET LOCATED DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM 1136 MASON STREET, DEARBORN, MICHIGAN 48124
Dear City Manager or Mayor:
Please be advised that my client, Patricia Mclean, sustained a significant injuries [sic] as a result of tripping and falling due to a hazardous and defective city street at the above referenced location.
On the above date, Ms. Mclean sustained the above-mentioned injuries when she tripped and fell on a defective portion of city street located directly across the street from 1136 Mason, Dearborn, Michigan. Enclosed you will find color laser copies of photographs showing the exact location where our client’s injury occurred, as well as of the hazardous defect that was allowed to remain on the street.
On September 16, 2008, plaintiffs attorney responded to a communication from Ms. Flory Morisette of the Claims Department of Broadspire. The parties agree that Broadspire is defendant’s third-party claims administrator (TPA). The letter stated in relevant part:
As you know, our office serves as counsel to [plaintiff], who was seriously injured on city property on the referenced date. Pursuant to your letter dated August 7, 2008,1 have enclosed multiple photographs of the exact location of the raised, defective, and uneven portion of the “highway” located directly across from 1136 Mason Street in the public street in the City of Dearborn (see attached). In addition, my client has sustained a fractured left foot and has tretated [sic] at Oakwood Hospital and will seek follow up care.
On July 8, 2010, plaintiff filed a complaint in the trial court, alleging numerous injuries, including a fractured left foot; head, neck and back injuries; injuries to the upper and lower extremities; permanent scarring; headaches; “severe shock”; “[s]evere humiliation and embarrassment”;
Defendant filed a motion for summary disposition, arguing that plaintiff had failed to provide adequate presuit notice of her claim pursuant to MCL 691.1404. Specifically, defendant argued that plaintiff had failed to adequately describe the alleged injuries sustained and the exact nature of the defect. Plaintiff responded that any defects in the original notice were cured by the subsequent letter to Broadspire.
The trial court agreed with plaintiff, concluding that the original notice sufficiently described the nature of the defect by enclosing pictures of the defect. The trial court further concluded that plaintiffs letter to Broad-spire sufficiently described the nature of her injury to satisfy the notice requirement of the statute. The trial court therefore denied defendant’s motion for summary disposition. Defendant moved the trial court for reconsideration, which the trial court denied. This appeal followed.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
This Court reviews de novo a trial court’s grant of summary disposition under MCR 2.116(C)(7) and (C)(10). Oliver v Smith,
III. NOTICE
The governmental tort liability act, MCL 691.1401 et seq., provides immunity from tort claims to governmental agencies engaged in a governmental function, as well as governmental officers, agents or employees. The Legislature has set forth six exceptions to governmental tort immunity. Lash v City of Traverse City,
Each 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.
This exception is to be narrowly construed. Grimes v Dep’t of Transp,
An injured person is required to timely notify the governmental agency
(1) As a condition to any recovery for injuries sustained by reason of any defective highway, the injured person, within 120 days from the time the injury occurred, except as otherwise provided in subsection (3)[1 ] shall serve a notice on the governmental agency of the occurrence of the injury and the defect. The notice shall specify the exact location and nature of the defect, the injury sustained and the names of the witnesses known at the time by the claimant.
(2) The notice may be served upon any individual, either personally, or by certified mail, return receipt requested, who may lawfully be served with civil process directed against the governmental agency, anything to the contrary in the charter of any municipal corporation notwithstanding.
Notice need not be provided in any particular form and is sufficient if it is timely and contains the requisite information. Burise v City of Pontiac,
MCL 691.1404 is “straightforward, clear, unambiguous” and “must be enforced as written.” Rowland, 477 Mich at 219. Although under some circumstances this Court will conclude that a notice is sufficient despite a technical defect, see Plunkett v Dep’t of Transp,
A. NOTICE OF THE LOCATION AND NATURE OF THE DEFECT WAS SUFFICIENT
Defendant argues first that plaintiff did not describe the exact nature of the defect. We agree with the trial court that the description of the nature and location of the defect in the original notification letter sent to the city manager and mayor, which included color photographs of the defect, was sufficient. Although the written description of a “hazardous and defective city street,” standing alone, would not provide sufficient notice of the exact nature of the defect, defendant was also provided
We decline to accept defendant’s argument that plaintiff admitted at her deposition that the photos did not accurately depict the defect. Plaintiff stated, in her deposition taken three years after the accident, that the hole in the picture was not “as crumbled looking” as she recalled it looking on the day of the accident, and agreed that it did not really represent how it looked when she fell. She further stated that it looked as though it was “not as deep” and “it could have been filled in.”
The purpose of requiring notice is to provide the governmental agency with an opportunity to investigate the claim while it is fresh and to remedy the defect before another person is injured. Plunkett,
B. THE INITIAL NOTICE LACKED SUFFICIENT DESCRIPTION OF THE NATURE OF PLAINTIFF’S INJURY
Were that the only issue with the original notice, we likely would affirm the trial court. However, defendant also argues, and we agree, that plaintiff failed to describe “the injury sustained” as required by MCL 691.1404(1). Plaintiff stated in the initial notice that she had received “a significant injuries [sic].” This is a significant ambiguity that was not remedied by clarity in any other aspects of the notice. As we already noted, in 2010 plaintiff in fact alleged a whole host of injuries in her complaint; defendant was not provided with notice of those injuries. The description of plaintiffs injury contained in the original notice was thus wholly inadequate; plaintiff cannot be deemed to have complied, substantially or otherwise, with this statutory requirement. Plunkett,
Plaintiff argues that she could not provide “an expert level of commentary” on her injury a mere five days after her accident, and invites this Court to consider a scenario in which she alleged that her ankle was sprained, only to lose her claim when it was discovered that her ankle was broken or that she had actually injured her tibia. This hypothetical situation is not before this Court. Rather, plaintiff knew,
C. THE LETTER TO BROADSPIRE WAS NOT SERVED IN ACCORDANCE WITH MCL 691.1404(2) AND MCR 2.105
Having determined that the initial notice to defendant was insufficient, we now determine whether the defect was cured by plaintiffs subsequent communication to defendant’s TPA. Plaintiff is correct that all the information required by MCL 691.1404(1) does not have to be contained within the plaintiffs initial notice; it is sufficient if a notice received by the governmental agency within the 120-day period contains all the required elements. Burise,
Plaintiff agrees that MCR 2.105(G)(2) does not provide for service of process on a TPA. However, plaintiff argues, for the first time on appeal, that MCR 2.105(H)(1) allows for such service in this case.
There is simply no record evidence in this case indicating that Broadspire was authorized by written appointment or law to accept service on behalf of defendant. MCR 2.105(H)(1). Plaintiffs claim appears to rest on the theory of apparent authority. Central Wholesale Co v Sefa,
Plaintiff again invites this Court to consider a hypothetical scenario in which a defendant engages outside counsel to contact plaintiff for more information about the claim, arguably barring the plaintiff from dealing or communicating directly with the defendant. Such a situation is not before this Court; nor do the notice requirements of MCL 691.1404 or the service requirements of MCR 2.105, govern all dealings between the parties. We see no great injustice in requiring plaintiffs seeking to provide notice to defendants under the statute to serve their notices on the correct parties. Although plaintiff asserts that there “should be no requirement that the supplemental notice be served upon the same cast of persons as identified in MCR 2.105(G),” we are not in a position
Finally, plaintiffs waiver argument is simply incorrect. Plaintiff claims that defendant never raised the issue of deficient service of process until its motion for reconsideration. However, the record indicates that defendant in fact raised the issue at the motion hearing on the parties’ cross-motions for summary disposition:
MR. IRVING [Attorney for defendant]: Thank you, your Honor. I just wanted to point out with respect to that second notice, we, that is Broadspire is a third-party administrator that the city has been using to adjust certain claims. We didn’t get this notice from Broadspire. .. . I just wanted to point out to the Court as well that even if that, we don’t concede that that’s a timely or proper notice because it wasn’t to the city, it was to a third party.
MR. IRVING: The statute requires service on the mayor, the clerk, or the city attorney of the notice.
Defendant also alleged in its first responsive pleading that plaintiff failed to give timely, adequate, and sufficient notice to defendant. There is no basis for concluding that defendant waived this issue, which was alleged in a responsive pleading and raised before and decided (at least implicitly) by the trial court in ruling on the parties’ motions. See Polkton Charter Twp v Pellegrom,
IV CONCLUSION
The unambiguous language of MCL 691.1404 requires this Court to reverse the trial court’s denial of summary disposition on the grounds that plaintiff failed to provide a description of the injury she allegedly suffered. Additionally, we hold that the defect in the original notice was not cured by plaintiffs subsequent communication with Broadspire.
Reversed and remanded for entry of summary disposition in favor of defendant. We do not retain jurisdiction.
Notes
Subsection 3 refers to injured claimants under the age of 18 and is not relevant to the instant case.
Plaintiff made no such argument in the trial court. The dissent nonetheless posits that the majority wrongly responds to this argument on behalf of defendant, since defendant had not addressed the argument before the trial court. The parties indeed confined their arguments before the trial court to whether service to Broadspire was valid under MCL 691.1404(2) and MCR 2.105(G)(2). And the plain language of that statute and court rule indicate that the service was defective. Plaintiff did not raise an argument under MCR 2.105(H)(1) until this appeal. Since plaintiff had not previously raised the argument, defendant properly responded to it for the first time on appeal. A party on appeal is not precluded from urging an “alternative ground for affirmance.” In re Herbach Estate,
As the dissent notes, this language also appears in MCL 600.1930.
The dissent also appears to rely on a theory of apparent authority, as it states that language from the letter from Broadspire “permits an inference that the City had authorized Broadspire to act on its behalf” and that “a reasonable fact-finder could infer that the City granted this authority to Broadspire in a written agreement.” However, defendant’s apparent appointment of Broadspire as a third party administrator in no way suggests or equates to a “written appointment... to receive service of process.” We reiterate that judicial construction of MCL 691.1404 and MCL 600.1930 is not permitted because they are clear and unambiguous. Rowland,
Additionally, we note that plaintiffs letter to Broadspire was not personally served, and the record does not contain evidence indicating it was served by “registered or certified mail” as required by MCR 2.105(A). Thus, even if we determined that Broadspire was authorized to accept service on behalf of defendant, that service would still have been defective under the relevant court rule.
This is not to say that we are without sympathy for plaintiffs position. Indeed, we are troubled by the fact that plaintiff is seemingly penalized for doing that which defendant’s TPA requested (in response to plaintiffs initial inadequate notice), i.e., providing additional information, only to determine later that it should have provided that information not to (or only to) the requesting TPA, but rather (or additionally) to such persons as may be “lawfully served with civil process” against defendant. MCL 691.1404(2). However, our sympathy is offset by the sheer inadequacy of the initially provided notice, as well as by the presumption that plaintiff knows the law. Adams Outdoor Advertising v City of East Lansing (After Remand),
Dissenting Opinion
(dissenting). This appeal turns on whether defendant, city of Dearborn, established that it was entitled to summary disposition on the ground that plaintiff, Patricia McLean, failed to give proper notice of her claim as required by MCL 691.1404. On this limited record, I conclude that McLean — at the very least— established a question of fact as to whether she complied with the notice requirement by providing a supplemental
This Court reviews de novo a trial court’s decision on a motion for summary disposition. Barnard Mfg Co, Inc v Gates Performance Engineering, Inc,
The city moved for summary disposition on the ground that it was immune from suit under the undisputed facts. See MCR 2.116(C)(7). In reviewing a motion under MCR 2.116(C)(7), courts must accept the allegations stated in the plaintiffs complaint as true unless contradicted by documentary evidence submitted by the movant. Maiden v Rozwood,
Although governmental entities are generally immune from tort liability when “engaged in the exercise or discharge of a governmental function,” MCL 691.1407, they remain liable for “bodily injury or damage” caused by their failure to keep highways under their jurisdiction in “reasonable repair,” MCL 691.1402(1). However, the Legislature provided that, as a condition of recovery, a person injured by a governmental agency’s failure to properly maintain a highway under its jurisdiction must serve the governmental agency with notice of the occurrence and the defect within 120 days of the injury occurring. MCL 691.1404(1). In the notice, the injured party must “specify the exact location and nature of the defect,” must describe “the injury sustained,” and must give the “names of the witnesses” about which the injured person knows at the time of the notice. Id.
The city moved for summary disposition on the grounds that McLean’s notice was deficient. Specifically, the city argued that McLean’s notice, which was dated July 16, 2008, did not include the exact nature of the defect and did not include a description of the injury that she sustained. The city attached a copy of the July 16, 2008 letter to its motion for summary disposition. On its face, that letter did not provide the city with an adequate description of McLean’s injuries.
McLean argued in response to the city’s motion that she had submitted two separate letters to the city, which together satisfied the notice requirements within the 120 period. Burise v City of Pontiac,
When McLean’s September 16, 2008, letter is examined together with her letter
The Legislature provided that the required notice “may be served upon any individual, either personally, or by certified mail, return receipt requested, who may lawfully be served with civil process directed against the governmental agency. . . .” MCL 691.1404(2). In the case of a city, process must generally be served on the “mayor, city clerk, or city attorney.” MCL 600.1925(2). But it can also be accomplished by sending it to the “person in charge of the office of any of the above-described officers,” MCL 600.1925, or to an “agent authorized by written appointment,” MCL 600.1930.
As can be seen from a cursory reading of these statutory provisions, McLean could properly serve her notice on persons other than the mayor, city clerk, or city attorney. Thus, the mere fact that she served her notice on someone other than the mayor, city clerk, or city attorney did not — standing alone — establish that her second notice was improperly served. Accordingly, the trial court correctly rejected the city’s claim that it could not consider this letter because it was not addressed to the identified city officials.
Despite this, the majority rejects McLean’s second letter because there “is simply no record evidence that Broadspire was authorized by written appointment or law to accept service” on the city’s behalf. That is, the majority rejects the second letter because, in its view, McLean had the burden to present evidence that established that the city had authorized Broadspire to accept notice — and that it did so through a written instrument — before any notice sent to Broadspire could be considered. The problem with this contention is that the city never made that argument. The city never challenged Broadspire’s authority to receive process; it merely argued that the notice had to be sent to its mayor, city clerk, or city attorney. And that argument was plainly incorrect. In engaging in the analysis that it does, the majority essentially faults McLean for fading to properly respond to a motion that the city never made — that is, the majority seems to anticipate the defect in the city’s actual motion and solves that problem by making the argument that the city could have made had it thought to do so. But it is not this Court’s obligation or place to remedy the deficiencies in a party’s position on a motion for summary disposition; rather, to ensure fundamental fairness in the litigation process, this Court will typically only consider the arguments actually made and the evidence actually presented in considering the propriety of a trial court’s decision on a motion for summary disposition. See Barnard Mfg,
Even setting aside the fact that the city never made the argument on which the majority now relies to reverse the trial court’s decision, I cannot agree with the majority’s premise that McLean failed to minimally support her position with evidence that the city authorized Broadspire to receive process.
In response to the city’s motion for summary disposition, McLean argued that she properly submitted a second notice to the city. In support of her contention, she attached her letter dated September 16, 2008, to her brief. She also provided evidence that the city’s claims adjuster solicited this second letter in a letter dated August 7, 2008. When this letter is read in the light most favorable to McLean, which we must do, see Tryc,
In the August 7,2008, letter, Flory Morisette wrote to McLean’s lawyer on Broadspire letterhead; she stated: “We are in receipt of your letter dated July 16, 2008 regarding the above claimant, Patricia McLean. We are the [third-party administrator] for the city of Dearborn under the self insured liability program.” Morisette requested McLean’s personal information and information about the accident and her medical treatment, including copies of her medical records and bills. Morisette closed the letter by requesting a meeting:
We would like to meet at your office to talk with both you and your client. We will discuss her loss facts and injuries. Please contact your client to obtain several dates and times of availability and contact me immediately to schedule a meeting. We are looking forward to meeting you and your client in the very near future.
Morisette’s statements strongly suggest that the city granted Broadspire the authority to handle McLean’s civil claim. Although McLean sent her first letter to the city’s mayor, Morisette stated that “we” (referring to Broadspire and its staff) are in “receipt” of that letter. A reasonable fact-finder could infer that Morisette was actually representing to McLean’s lawyer that she and her company were the lawfully appointed representatives for the city; the fact-finder could also infer that Broadspire would not have had McLean’s information or be “in receipt” of her first letter unless the city had in fact authorized Broadspire to act on the city’s behalf. A reasonable fact-finder could conclude that the administrator of a self-insured fund would have broad authority to handle claims, which may include the authority to receive future service of process. And this inference was further bolstered by Morisette’s assertion that she — not an official from the city’s office — wanted to meet with McLean and her lawyer to discuss McLean’s injuries and the facts of her case. This last statement, again, permits an inference that the city had authorized Broadspire to act on its behalf. Finally, a reasonable fact-finder could infer that the city granted this authority to Broadspire in a written agreement. Thus, Broad-spire’s letter is evidence, however limited,
On the record evidence and arguments properly before this Court, the city failed to establish that it was entitled to summary disposition on the ground that McLean did not give it proper notice under MCL 691.1404. Consequently, I would affirm.
These statutory provisions have been incorporated into our court rules at MCR 2.105(G) and MCR 2.105(H).