Premises liability; Applicability of the open & obvious doctrine to a tenant’s claim under MCL 554.139(1)(a); Royce v. Chatwell Club Apts.; Whether the parking lot was fit for its intended purpose; Intended use of a parking lot; Allison v. AEW Capital Mgmt. LLP; Effect of the fact plaintiff fell in a handicapped access area of the lot; Principle that walking in a parking lot is secondary to the lot’s primary use; Hadden v. McDermitt Apts.; Upholding a trial court’s ruling where it reached the right result for the wrong reason; Gleason v. Michigan Dep’t of Transp.

While the court concluded that the trial court erred in granting defendant-landlord summary disposition of plaintiff-tenant’s statutory claim based on the open and obvious doctrine, it affirmed because the parking lot at issue was fit for its intended purpose. Plaintiff contended that “defendant breached its duty under MCL 554.139(1)(a) because the handicapped access area of the parking lot” where she fell was not fit for its intended purpose, which she asserted was for walking. However, the Supreme Court concluded in Allison that “the intended use for a parking lot is for parking vehicles.” Plaintiff claimed that the handicapped access area “could not have the primary purpose of parking because vehicles are not allowed to park” there. The court found that her argument made “a distinction without a difference.” Her argument focused “too much on where vehicles are or are not allowed to park in relation to the intended purpose of a parking lot.” A parking lot’s intended purpose “is to park vehicles, while ‘[w]alking in a parking lot is secondary to’” its primary use. Although vehicles may not be permitted “to park in the handicapped access area, the primary purpose of a parking lot, parking vehicles, reflects the purpose of a parking lot as a whole, and does not account for where vehicles are or are not allowed to park.” The undisputed material facts showed that plaintiff slipped and fell in the lot as she was trying to access her vehicle. She asserted that “the handicapped access area was unfit for its intended purpose because ice and snow covered” it. Her daughter testified that there were about 1 to 2 inches of snow in the “lot and that there was ice where the sidewalk met the parking lot. However, plaintiff failed to introduce any evidence that the 1 to 2 inches of snow and patch of ice prevented the tenants from parking their vehicles or having reasonable access to their vehicles.” There was evidence that at least one vehicle used the lot around the time she fell. “Importantly, MCL 554.139(1)(a) does not require that a parking lot be maintained ‘in an ideal condition or in the most accessible condition possible, but merely requires the lessor to maintain it in a condition that renders it fit for use as a parking lot.’”