Slip & fall; Premises liability; Benton v. Dart Props., Inc.; Lugo v. Ameritech Corp., Inc.; Open & obvious dangers; Buhalis v. Trinity Continuing Care Servs.; Consideration of the weather conditions; Estate of Trueblood v. P&G Apts., LLC; Janson v. Sajewski Funeral Home, Inc.; Slaughter v. Blarney Castle Oil Co.

Holding that the complained-of condition was open and obvious, the court affirmed the trial court’s order granting summary disposition to defendant. Plaintiff slipped and fell in a parking lot owned by defendant. She argued “that she could not have slipped on slush because slush is not slippery, and so the only explanation for her fall is that she slipped on ice that was beneath the slush.” While the trial court questioned her “assertion that she could not have possibly slipped on slush, it is ultimately irrelevant whether plaintiff slipped on ice or slush because either condition was open and obvious.” The wintry conditions were clearly present. “Defendant produced weather reports showing that the temperature had been well below freezing since the day before plaintiff’s fall, and that it had been lightly snowing in the area of plaintiff’s fall for the four hours before her fall. Plaintiff testified that she was wearing a winter coat and winter boots.” Further, the court noted that “plaintiff, who was a life-long Michigan resident, readily observed the wintry conditions of the parking lot. Plaintiff testified that when she pulled into the parking lot, she saw that ‘the whole parking lot’ was covered in slush.” The court noted because snow and ice are generally open and obvious, and she “admitted that she saw the that the entire parking lot was covered with slush, and ‘the presence of wintery weather conditions’ would have alerted ‘a reasonably prudent person’ to ‘the danger of slipping and falling,’” the ice or slush that she slipped on was open and obvious. She contended that this case was akin to Slaughter. Based on the conditions surrounding her fall, the court held that this case was clearly not analogous to Slaughter. Plaintiff contended that Slaughter “stands for the proposition that courts should ‘not focus on the wintry conditions.’” This was incorrect. In an order issued after Slaughter, the Michigan Supreme Court explained that Slaughter “was correctly decided because it considered whether black ice was ‘open and obvious when there are “indicia of a potentially hazardous condition,” including the “specific weather conditions present at the time of the plaintiff’s fall.”’ . . . Thus, courts should consider the weather conditions surrounding a plaintiff’s fall because they weigh directly on whether there were sufficient indicia of a potentially hazardous condition of which plaintiff should have been aware.” Therefore, based on the weather conditions surrounding her “fall and her acknowledgment that the slush and wintry conditions of the parking lot were readily observable, the slush or ice that plaintiff slipped on was open and obvious.”