I Saw the Sign! A Conspicuous Warning is Sufficient

The Michigan Court of Appeals in Lam v Meijer Inc. affirmed summary disposition for Defendant Meijer, effectively disposing of the claims. The case arose due to a slip and fall in the store’s bottle-return area, where the Plaintiff slipped in a puddle on the floor. The Court of Appeals found that there was no error in the dismissal, as the store had conspicuously placed a wet-floor sign in the area that adequately warned all customers of the risk. The remaining ordinary negligence charges were also rightly dismissed by the trial court, because they ultimately were still premises liability claims framed in ordinary negligence language.

The holding by the Court of Appeals here continues the standard of applying a reasonable person standard to analysis of a premises possessor’s duty, regardless of whether more could theoretically have been done to prevent harm. The Court noted that “a plaintiff can almost always argue that a land possessor could do more to warn about a hazardous condition on the land, which is presumably why that is generally not the relevant inquiry.” Lam at *3. Business owners and managers under this standard need only to act reasonably to warn of hazards, and are not expected to make their premises injury-proof.Property Owners and Insurers Newsline – Lam v Meijer, Inc. by Steven Meerschaert