This is a premises liability action. A jury found defendant, McLouth Steel Products Corporation, liable to plaintiffs, Vance Riddle and his wife, Lucinda, for injuries sustained when Riddle slipped and fell at a McLouth plant. The jury award was $4,680,000 for Riddle and $320,000 for his wife. As the jury found Riddle thirty percent negligent, damages 'were reduced proportionately. McLouth appeals as of right. We affirm.
Riddle was a truck driver employed by an independent contractor. Since 1983, he had spent his entire workday hauling steel from McLouth’s plant in Trenton to its plant in Gibraltar.
The steel hauled by Riddle first went through a "pickling” process. Cold-rolled steel was unrolled and covered with oil in Trenton. It was then rerolled and placed on racks from which excess oil drained. The pickled steel was then loaded onto trucks and taken to the Gibraltar plant. At Gibraltar, the steel rolls were unloaded and stored on metal rails where they continued to drain. The draining area was known as the coil field. Steel remained there until further processing.
On January 19, 1984, before his second run to the Gibraltar plant, Riddle was asked by a Mc-Louth employee to deliver a box to the foreman’s office at Gibraltar. After arriving at Gibraltar, Riddle removed the box from the truck. He and another driver, Charles Pfeiffer, began the walk to the foreman’s office. They took the shortest route, through the coil field. Suddenly, Riddle slipped. His feet went out from under him and his hard *262 hat flew off. As he hit the concrete floor, his head struck one of the rails, severely injuring him.
Pfeiffer went to Riddle’s assistance, and as he did, he realized there was oil on the floor. Neither Riddle nor Pfeiffer had noticed oil before. Both acknowledged that they knew oil dripped on the floor and sometimes made it slippery. However, they had seen defendant’s employees cleaning the floor that morning. The nearest steel coil which had been set out to drain was approximately thirty feet from where Riddle fell.
McLouth had posted no signs warning of the dangers of oil draining. It had designated no safe walkways. The mill foreman, William Nelhengen, testified that McLouth was aware of the hazard. Efforts were made to clean up the oil every six to eight weeks. There were four walkways through the coil field. However, ninety-nine percent of the drivers used the walkway where Riddle fell. Lines were painted on the floor to warn crane operators not to place coils there.
On appeal, McLouth alleges two instructional errors. First, it claims the court erred in refusing to modify the standard jury instruction defining the duty owed by a possessor of premises to an invitee (SJI2d 19.03).
The court gave the following instruction defining McLouth’s duty:
It is the duty of a possessor of premises to exercise reasonable care for the protection of an invitee, the status that Mr. Riddle had in this case. The possessor must warn the invitee of dangers which it knows or has created and must inspect the premises to discover possible danger or conditions for which it does not know. It must take reasonable precautions to protect the invitee from dangers that are foreseeable. However, a possesser is not an insurer of the safety of an invitee, and *263 his duty is only to exercise reasonable care for the invitee’s protection. The mere existence of a defect or danger is not enough to establish liability unless it is shown to be such of [sic] a character, or such duration that it would have been discovered by a reasonably careful person.[ 1 ]
McLouth claims that the instruction should have been modified. It wanted the court to inform the jury that there was no duty to warn of dangers that Riddle had knowledge of or which were open and obvious. McLouth admits there were no warnings, but it contends that Riddle knew there was oil on the floor based on his seventeen years of experience in the industry. The instruction given forced the jurors to find negligence based on a breach of the duty to warn, even if they found Riddle had knowledge of the condition. McLouth argues the instruction was incorrect under the law.
Vance and Lucinda Riddle contend that the issue of his knowledge of a dangerous condition takes on relevance only when his comparative negligence is construed. It does not diminish Mc-Louth’s duty to warn of known hazards. The trial judge instructed the jurors on Riddle’s duty to use reasonable care. He informed them also that it was McLouth’s theory that Riddle had breached his duty because of his knowledge of the dangerous condition.
This case puts into issue the status of the "no-duty to warn of open and obvious dangers rule” in light of Michigan’s adoption of the doctrine of comparative negligence.
A business invitor has the duty to maintain its
*264
premises in a reasonably safe condition. It must exercise due care to prevent and obviate the existence of a situation, known to it or which should be known, that might result in injury.
Beals v Walker,
Further erosion of the no-duty rule has occurred in premises cases involving the natural accumulation of ice and snow. In
Quinlivan v Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co, Inc,
It is important to remember that the no-duty rule existed before the adoption of comparative negligence when plaintiffs contributory negligence barred his right to recover regardless of defendant’s negligence. See, e.g.,
Vanderah v Olah,
*265 The invitor’s actions were not examined for negligence, as he was deemed to have no duty under the circumstances.
With the adoption of pure comparative negligence, the Supreme Court has attempted to enact a fair system of apportionment of damages, distributing responsibility according to the fault of the parties.
Placek v City of Sterling Heights,
These courts, in comparing the no-duty rule with the assumption of the risk doctrine, have concluded that the no-duty rule, like assumption of the risk, is incompatible with comparative negligence. In Harrison, p 592, the Idaho Supreme Court explained this incompatibility:
Prior to the advent of comparative negligence, contributory negligence was an absolute bar to recovery. Thus, it made little difference whether a known or obvious condition excused a land possessor’s duty to an invitee, or simply insulated the possessor from liability for any breach of such duty. In either event, the injured invitee could not recover. But under the comparative negligence system, the difference is profound. If duty is not excused by a known or obvious danger, the injured invitee might recover, albeit in a diminished amount, if his negligence in encountering the risk is found to be less than the land possessor’s negligence in allowing the dangerous condition or activity on his property. In contrast, if the invitee’s *266 voluntary encounter with a known or obvious danger were deemed to excuse the land owner’s duty, then there would be no negligence to compare — and, therefore, no recovery. The effect would be to resurrect contributory negligence as an absolute bar to recovery in cases involving a land possessor’s liability to invitees.
We believe that the no-duty rule, like assumption of the risk, should be abolished in Michigan. See
Felgner v Anderson,
In this case, the trial court properly instructed the jurors regarding the defendant-invitor’s duty to use reasonable care. The issue of the plaintiff-invitee’s knowledge was properly included and considered as it related to his contributory negligence and mitigation of damages. We do not find instructional error.
McLouth also argues that the jurors should not have been instructed pursuant to SJI2d 12.05, which states that violations of administrative rules and regulations are evidence of negligence. Mc-Louth was charged with violating a safety regulation which required it to provide a workplace free *267 from hazards likely to cause serious bodily injury. 1979 AC, R 408.10015(3) and (4). 2
Safety regulations in the workplace may apply to the employees of independent contractors.
Beals, supra,
p 481;
Hardaway v Consolidated Paper Co,
Affirmed.
Notes
This instruction is essentially SJI2d 19.03 except the judge substituted the phrase "a possessor” for "the possessor.” He was attempting to explain the duty in an abstract way to avoid giving the jurors the impression that they must find negligence.
(3) The floor of a work area, passageway, or aisle shall be maintained in a manner that does not create a hazard to an employee, free of accumulations of scrap, debris, water, oil, grease, and other slip and trip hazards, except where an immediate emergency operation must be performed.
(4) Where a wet process, such as, but not limited to, plating operations, food processing, or car washing, is used, drainage shall be maintained or false floors, platforms, or mats used. Where an employee is required to work on a wet surface in a wet process, the surface shall be slip-resistant.
The Court did not read the regulation to the jurors. It gave the following instruction:
They [Plaintiffs] contend that the Defendant’s conduct also violates a Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Act Provision which requires the Defendant to provide a place of work free from hazards likely to cause serious bodily injury.
Violation of this statute, the Plaintiffs contend is evidence of negligence on the part of the Defendant.