Trip & fall on an allegedly defective city sidewalk; The Governmental Tort Liability Act (MCL 691.1401 et seq.); Rowland v. Washtenaw Cnty. Rd. Comm’n; Sidewalk exception; MCL 691.1402a; Notice; MCL 691.1404(2); Milot v. Department of Transp.; MCR 2.105(G)(2); Wigfall v. City of Detroit; Use of the word “may” in a statute; Walters v. Nadell; NL Ventures VI Farmington, LLC v. Livonia; “Substantial compliance”; Plunkett v. Department of Transp.; MCR 2.105(J)(3); Equitable estoppel; Trahey v. Inkster; Applicability to municipalities; Sau-Tuk Indus., Inc. v. Allegan Cnty.; Principle that everyone dealing with a municipality & its agent is charged with knowledge of the provisions of lawfully adopted ordinances; Hughes v. Almena Twp.

The court held that plaintiff failed to comply with MCL 691.1404’s requirements, that her reliance on Plunkett’s substantial compliance rule and on MCR 2.105(J)(3) were misplaced, and that her failure to comply with the statutory requirements could not be excused by applying equitable estoppel. Thus, her claim arising from a trip and fall on an allegedly defective city sidewalk was barred as a matter of law. The trial court granted the defendant-city summary disposition after finding plaintiff’s notice was insufficient under MCL 691.1404 where she served the notice on the city’s Law Department. On appeal, she argued that MCL 691.1404(2)’s plain language “does not make the method of service of notice it outlines for municipalities mandatory.” The court disagreed. Although “the word ‘may’ typically denotes a permissive statutory provision,” her argument lacked merit because she read the statute “in isolation. When subsections (1) and (2) of MCL 691.1404 are read in conjunction with one another, it is evident that subsection (1) requires that the notice must contain specific information and must be provided within 120 days after the injury, and that subsection (2) provides that such notice must be served upon any individual, either personally or by certified mail, return receipt requested.” The city’s Law Department was not an “individual,” and thus, “not a being that ‘may be lawfully served with civil process against’ the city.” Her reliance on Plunkett was misplaced because its substantial compliance rule only applies “to the required content of the notice, not to the required service of the notice.” Her reliance on MCR 2.105(J)(3) was also misplaced, because her case involved “service of statutory notice, not service of process. The Legislature specifically delineated the appropriate method of statutory service in MCL 691.1404,” making MCR 2.105(J)(3) irrelevant. Finally, as to her equitable estoppel argument, her “claimed reliance on defendant’s informal claims materials, despite her ability to inform herself of the statutory notice requirement, was simply not reasonable.” Affirmed.